


wrong number

by thewordsofalullaby



Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Jokes, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor, Mutual Pining, Pen Pals, Phone Calls & Telephones, Slow Burn, Strangers, Strangers to Lovers, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordsofalullaby/pseuds/thewordsofalullaby
Summary: She always replies when people text her by accident; always has, always will. It’s just, she doesn’t want to leave anyone hanging, you know? If they texted her by mistake, then she thinks it’s only right that she does her part for society and lets them know; otherwise, they might think that they’ve gotten the right number and that they’re being ignored, and she can’t have friendships or marriages breaking up over her. She’s not a homewrecker.Nick texts the wrong number by mistake and ends up befriending (?) a stranger. Chaos ensues.(AU; S1/S2 vibes; lots of slow burn/mutual pining goodness and stupid jokes)
Relationships: Cece Parekh/Schmidt (New Girl), Jessica Day & Aly Nelson, Jessica Day & Cece Parekh, Jessica Day & Nick Miller, Jessica Day/Nick Miller, Nick Miller & Schmidt (New Girl), Winston Bishop & Nick Miller
Comments: 163
Kudos: 127





	1. 111-111-111

It starts purely by accident: honest to god, it does. He'd been on his way out of the loft to try and catch his flight home for Christmas when he'd managed to wipe the second half of his contacts from his phone book. It's 100% Schmidt's fault, because Schmidt had stolen his phone from him and adamantly refused to give him it back until he'd accepted his offer to 'upgrade' him to an actual _contract_ and they'd ended up wrestling over it on the floor (a big no thanks on the contract: he doesn’t trust any company that asks for his bank details—though that’s partly because he has no bank details to give). He tries to text Winston while he’s in the cab because they’d agreed to meet each other at the airport (and he’s most definitely going to be late), but, thanks to Schmidt, his number’s no longer saved in his phone so he ends up having to just guess at the last two, three, (okay, four) digits and hope for the best.

_Hey, man, I’m about five minutes away. I swear I’m not going to be late this time. – N_

_Well, okay, not that late. – N_

_I’m almost there. – N_

_Don’t get on the plane without me. – N_

He’s about halfway through security and dangerously close to his flight’s scheduled boarding time when his phone buzzes several times in his pocket and he realises that he definitely hadn’t managed to guess Winston’s number correctly.

_I think you have the wrong number? – Jess xoxo_

_I really hope you caught your flight though. – Jess xoxo_

_Merry Christmas! :) – Jess xoxo_

He blinks at the string of messages lighting up his screen and tilts his head a little, a slight frown twisting at his features as he reads them. Why would someone bother signing a text if they suspected it was from a wrong number?! And…were the last two texts really that necessary? Surely just saying that it was a wrong number was enough? He’s not a serial killer or anything, but he _could be_. He’s not sure why he replies, aside from the fact that he’s currently in a queue that’s not moving and he’s undeniably bored, but he finds himself typing out a sarcastic reply before he can stop himself:

_It’s not Christmas for another two days. – N_

* * *

She always replies when people text her by accident; always has, always will. It’s just, she doesn’t want to leave anyone hanging, you know? If they texted her by mistake, then she thinks it’s only right that she does her part for society and lets them know; otherwise, they might think that they’ve gotten the right number and that they’re being ignored, and she can’t have friendships or _marriages_ breaking up over her. She’s not a homewrecker. Occasionally, if she’s feeling in a particularly good mood, she’ll try and strike up friendly conversation in the process. So far, she’s made a few (okay, just two) friends by doing this: she’s got a pen pal all the way in England, who happens to be a fellow teacher that lives in a fancy mansion (though she’s not sure how he ever managed to ‘accidentally’ text her when the country codes are entirely different), and a ‘friend’ in Florida who messages her once every two years, normally when tipsy. She likes the mystery: the person on the other end could be _anywhere_ and _anyone,_ and she likes coming up with creative backstories for them and imagining what they’re doing all the way across the world.

When she gets the messages about the plane, she’s in the middle of catching her _own_ flight back to Portland. Unlike plane person though, she’d arrived at the airport with a whole three hours to spare and she’s already been around the airport shops five (too many) times and there’s nothing left for her to do. The messages make her smile, mostly because their situation sounds like the complete opposite to the one that she’s currently in, and she’s imagining someone – a guy? a girl? she can’t quite tell – running frantically through the airport, trying desperately to make their flight, swinging their luggage at everyone as they rush past. She’s not really expecting a reply considering the whole about-to-miss-their-flight thing, but her phone buzzes a short moment later anyway. She smiles at the words on the screen, her fingers automatically moving to tap out a reply, glad to have a distraction from the next _three hours_ of mind-numbing boredom that awaits.

_Doesn’t mean that I can’t still wish you Merry Christmas. – Jess xoxo_

_So, Merry Christmas! – Jess xoxo_

She doesn’t get a reply until two days later though, when she’s had a little too much pink wine to drink, and it takes her a good five seconds before she remembers who these messages are coming from:

_I made my flight. – N_

_Also: Merry Christmas. – N_

* * *

Everything kind of…spirals from there. He’s not sure why, but he can’t stop himself from replying to her texts (well, he’s assuming she’s a girl based on her name, but—yeah, he guesses he’s been wrong before. Long story.) It’s especially weird for him, because he’s never been much of a texter, or a talker, or—anything involving two people and _words_ , but yet, here he is, sitting on his bed all the way back in California now, replying to her latest message. It’s a bit of a ramble of a text, containing an unnecessary long description of this crafts market that she visited during the Christmas break (which, uh, he didn’t actually ask for? Also, who does _crafts_ on Christmas? That honestly sounds like his nightmare). The whole message is just weird enough and just long enough that he feels obliged to reply though, his interest piqued—

—except, uh, maybe he should have taken Schmidt up on his offer to upgrade him onto a contract because he’s completely out of credit. Is he really about to top up his phone so that he can reply to an indisputably _bizarre_ text from a strange girl who may-or-may-not be completely insane?

Apparently, yes.

He likes weird things: sue him. (except, don’t, because he dropped out of law school and became a full-time bartender for a reason.)

_So, I visited this crafts market on Christmas Day…and it was amazing! There were all these handmade ornaments and mulled wine, and everything was all lit up with fairy lights. It was really, really magical. It reminded me of Candy Cane Lane in LA, if you’ve ever been. - Jess xoxo._

_Anyway, enough about me. I hope you had a great Christmas! :) – Jess xoxo._

_I did, and I have not. – N_

* * *

It takes several weeks of thoughtfully crafted texts before she manages to get more than a one sentence answer back. Here’s the thing: she’s usually _excellent_ at reading people and getting people to divulge their secrets to her, but whoever this person is? Well, they’re a really, really tough nut to crack. She tries to feed them a story about what she did on Christmas Day in the hopes that it’d make him or her open up to her, but it doesn’t work at all. She changes tack then and decides to go _all in,_ because she’s oddly curious about who this person is and she’s never backed down from a challenge. She starts sending messages more regularly, sometimes just with stories about what happened during her day, and at others, just random facts that pop into her head, in the hopes that she’ll eventually manage to wear them down and get more of an insight into their life. She’s not sure why she’s so curious, but she just…is. 

The story that finally makes him or her break is unexpected, but she goes along with it wholeheartedly anyway:

_I went on a field trip to the beach today and it was freezing, considering it’s January, but still fun! It’s been ages since I’ve been to the beach, and I’ve always liked watching seagulls; it’s kinda peaceful, you know? – Jess xoxo._

_I once saw a seagull in the backseat of a moving car. – N_

_Also… Please don’t tell me you’re still in high-school. Pretty sure I’d be breaking some sort of law by texting you if that’s the case. – N_

Jess blinks, rereads her message and pulls a face, hastily typing out a reply. Whoever this person is gets an extra +10 points in her book for respecting child protection laws though, and...that makes them very near to the top of her list, actually.

_Oh, god, no. I’m definitely not. I’m actually an English teacher. – Jess xoxo_

_And…wait, you saw a seagull in a moving car?! Please, tell me more. – Jess xoxo_

_Okay, good. That’s a relief. – N_

_Yeah, so, I was driving home one day from work, and I looked over and I saw a seagull in the car next to me. It was flying around and everything, and the driver was trying his hardest to drive, but also fight it off. Pretty hilarious, actually. – N_

_Oh no! Was the driver okay? He didn’t get hurt, did he? – Jess xox_

_What? No, I guess he was fine. Not sure, actually. – N_

_Well, I hope so. – Jess xoxo_

_What would you do if you were driving and you had a seagull in the back of your car? – Jess xoxo_

_Why would I have a seagull in the back of my car? – N_

_Hypothetically. – Jess xoxo_

_It wouldn’t happen, even hypothetically. – N_

_I’m not sure you know what hypothetically means. – Jess xoxo_

And…silence.

Great, Jess. Just when you were getting somewhere.

* * *

He’s dimly aware that he’s probably becoming more fixated on these text exchanges than he should be, his hands immediately reaching into his pocket to pull his phone out every time it buzzes, even though nine times out of ten, it’s Schmidt asking for his hourly update on his life for his _graph_. (No matter how hard he and Winston try, Schmidt won’t stop tracking their life trajectories on Excel. His spreadsheet currently says that his life is going to end by the time he reaches thirty, which means that he only has a year left on this planet. He’s not sure he really trusts Schmidt’s algorithms, but—he _does_ get paid crazy amounts to do whatever ‘marketing’ really is, so what does he know?)

It’s just…kinda freeing to be able to talk to a stranger; someone who he’ll probably never meet in real life. She seems like a nice girl and she seems genuinely interested in his life, even though at this point, he definitely knows a hundred times more about her life than she does about his. It’s not his fault: she seemingly has zero boundaries and he’s actually half-concerned that if he _had_ been a serial killer or a creepy stalker, it would have been really easy for him to take advantage of her and track her down, and—well, this is all ‘hypothetical’ and he’s _not_ , so he shouldn’t be worried, right? Unless, uh, he’s not the only stranger that she’s texting and someone out there is doing this exact thing at this exact moment?!

_Hey, you probably shouldn’t tell me so much about your life. I mean, I am just a stranger. – N_

_You don’t want me to text you anymore? – Jess xoxo_

_No, it’s not that. Just, be careful, okay? – N_

_Are you going to murder me because you’re a stranger that I just happened to text back? – Jess xoxo_

_No. – N_

_…Are you worried about me? – Jess xoxo_

He pauses, runs a hand through his hair.

_Kinda, yeah. – N_

* * *

Two whole months of back-and-forth exchanges pass before she manages to get a name and a gender, and she’s not so sure she would have gotten the information if they hadn’t decided to text her whilst clearly tipsy (or, at least, she assumes they were because they never really initiate conversations with her, almost always letting her go first). She feels a _tiny_ bit bad about letting them spill all this personal information out, especially after their conversation about this very topic, but at the same time, she’s not a murderer and she’s been itching to know, to the extent that Cece’s threatened to confiscate her phone because “babe, this is borderline unhealthy.”

_Jess, you’re an English teacher, right? Settle a debate for me, please. – N_

She blinks at the message and rubs at her eyes a little, because this is the first time that they’ve ever referred to her as _Jess_ , and huh, yeah, maybe they had a point about this whole personal information thing because everything suddenly feels a lot more intimate and she’s weirdly nervous for the first time since she started texting back.

_Okay?_ _I’m all yours._ – Jess xoxo

_I meant ‘all yours’ in an English teacher ‘I’ll happily debate spelling and grammar’ sense. Not, um, in any other sense. – Jess xoxo_

_I mean, I’m not even sure if you’re a guy or a girl. – Jess xoxo_

_Anyway. What was it that you wanted to ask me? – Jess xoxo_

There’s a pause then, and it’s probably only a few seconds at most, but it feels uncomfortably long, and she can feel her cheeks heating up in embarrassment (why did she write that?!), even though it’s _fine_ , because it’s not like she’ll ever meet him or her.

_Got it. – N_

_So, I’m at a bar, and my friend’s claiming that it’s ‘utmost’, but, like, what’s an ‘ut’? It’s clearly ‘upmost’, right? – N_

_And, if not, though I’m clearly right, could ya lie? I kinda have $15 riding on this. – N_

_…also: very much a guy. – N_

She blinks at the reveal, tilting her head slightly at the information, and then scrolls all the way up and rereads everything in this new context. She’s not sure whether she was expecting it to be a guy or a girl, because she’s been trying not to analyse every message and fall into the trap of gender stereotyping (hey, it’s not 1950 anymore! Gender equality!), but…now that she _knows_ , it all seems to fall into place, and she can almost picture some messy haired guy in a dim bar tapping replies to her from somewhere across the continent.

_Jessica?_ – _N_

She swallows then, weirdly fixated on the fact that he’d called her _Jessica_ , that odd sense of intimacy creeping over her again, even though the rational part of her mind knows that they’re still just two strangers who happen to have each other’s numbers. She takes a second, and then decides to throw caution to the wind and probe a little, because—hey, she guesses she has nothing to lose. It’s not like she knows him in real life.

_Hate to do this to you, but it’s definitely utmost._ – _Jess xoxo_

_Also, no-one calls me Jessica. If you’re going to call me Jessica, then it’s only fair that I get to call you something that isn’t just ‘N’. – Jess xoxo_

There’s another pause, and for a second, she thinks that maybe she’s pushed him too far and she starts trying to formulate an apology. Her phone buzzes before she’s finished writing out the second paragraph though, and she’s grinning at the screen as she reads the words.

_You owe me $15. – Nick_

His name is Nick. 

Nick.

_Nick._

(Nicholas? Nicolas? Nikola? Nikolas?)

* * *

They fall into a weird sort of…friendship, if you can even call it that considering that, you know, they’re still very much strangers. He finds himself beginning to message her without being prompted, wanting to get her opinions on little things, like his latest idea for his still-very-much-in-progress detective novel and whether a gorilla would like it if he combed its hair. He’s not really sure why he’s doing it, but it’s kinda nice to have an outlet for all the odd thoughts that he has swirling around his brain, especially since she always seems to take every message entirely seriously, falling into a debate with him about gorillas for two hours without hesitation.

( _Who would win in a fight? Me or a gorilla? - Nick_

_Gorilla. - Jess xoxo_

_You don't even know me. - Nick_

_Gorilla. - Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, but like, say I had superpowers and we were in a fight. - Nick_

_Gorilla. - Jess xoxo_

_Okay, but consider this scenario: - Nick_

_Gorilla. - Jess xoxo_

_I haven't even told you the scenario yet! - Nick_

_Gorilla. - Jess xoxo_

_Very funny. - Nick)_

…except, then, it starts to interfere with his _actual_ life, and it hits him that he may be developing a slight problem. He’s in the middle of his shift, trying his best to, you know, do his _job_ , while Winston and Schmidt sit on the other side of the counter. They’re sipping on (free) drinks, eyeing his every move, and they (well, mostly Schmidt) suddenly state that “enough’s enough” and insist that they’re going to get him laid by the end of the night. ...so, yeah, maybe it’s been an embarrassingly long time since he’s done anything with a girl, let alone sleep with one, but—after Caroline, and then Julia, and then Angie, he’d kinda sworn off girls for the time-being. He’s fine, honestly. He’s working on himself, working on his novel, and, you know, _self-improving._ Nothing wrong with that.

He’s halfway through telling them this, trying his best to get Schmidt to back the hell down before he does something that all three of them will inevitably regret, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. It doesn’t just buzz once, but three times in a row, so he immediately knows it’s Jess, because the only other person who would text him that many times in the space of five seconds is the person who he’s currently yelling at (also known as, Schmidt). He pauses mid-sentence and pulls his phone out, a smile slowly creeping over his face as he reads her latest messages: a short retelling of how she’d tried to give a talk on ‘boundaries’ at her school and ended up hitting some guy in the crotch. He has no idea what she looks like, but at the same time, he can kinda picture the whole thing when he reads the words. It’s a very weird feeling; he can’t even begin to explain it.

“Are you _smiling_?”

“Yeah, man, who are you texting?”

He quickly tries to put his phone away, but it’s too late and Schmidt has practically jumped over the counter and grabbed it from him. He knows the moment that he’s in trouble because Schmidt’s eyebrows raise comically high as he reads the messages on the screen, followed by Winston’s, and—

“ _Jess?_ Nick, why didn’t you just tell us that you’ve been seeing a girl? Are you embarrassed of us?”

Nick lets out a deep sigh and rubs a hand roughly over his face, and then snatches his phone back before they can scroll up any further. He's pretty sure that both of them would tease him relentlessly for weeks if they read the gorilla debate.

“Yeah, I’m 100% embarrassed of you,” he replies, and ‘accidentally’ fails to address the other thing they mentioned.

He’s not lying, he’s just…leaving certain information out. He feels oddly guilty about it for the rest of the night though, especially because Schmidt and Winston won’t stop trying to get more information out of him about _his new girlfriend_ , but also—it’s not like he’s actually ever going to meet Jess, so…no harm done, right? She doesn't need to know that he's now kinda, sorta, pretending like she's his girlfriend so that his two best friends-slash-idiots will stop pestering him.

_You hit him in the crotch? – Nick_

_Didn’t think you had it in you. – Nick_

_Well, I’m full of surprises. ;) – Jess xoxo_

He tries not to think too hard about the fact that his heart does a flip when he reads the wink at the end.


	2. 222-222-222

Okay, so, they’ve never really acknowledged their relationship, but Jess is pretty confident – no, scratch that, _very_ confident that they’re now friends. It’s excellent timing, really, because she hasn’t had too much luck making friends with the teachers at her new school yet (it’ll happen eventually, she’s sure of it; she just needs to figure out what their weak spots are), and she could do with some new friends. Plus, she’s quickly finding out that Nick's mind works in intriguing and fascinating ways, and she genuinely enjoys getting his opinions on things (for instance; she learns that he fully believes that the moon landing was faked and that dinosaurs never existed, but, at the same time, he knows an endless number of facts about gorillas and seems to mostly accept Darwin's theory of evolution). It’s difficult to put into words exactly what compels her to start talking to him on an almost daily basis, but it’s just nice to listen – well, maybe not ‘listen’ – to his (often entirely _made-up_ ) theories about random everyday things; it somehow makes her life feel a little less mundane.

“Are you seriously texting Nick again? In the middle of dinner?” Cece asks, eyeing her suspiciously over her glass of wine, one eyebrow raised.

Jess shrugs, though she quickly finishes what she’s writing and hastily shoves her phone back in her purse, shooting Cece an apologetic look. At this point, Cece knows all about her text exchanges with Nick, because there are absolutely zero secrets between them (at least, not on her side), but she’s not exactly supportive of the whole thing.

Case in point:

“Jess, I’m only asking this because I love you, but: how do you know that he’s not an eighty year old man living in a hut somewhere in the middle of the desert, typing messages out to you in between feeding his camels?” Cece asks, and that’s a _very_ _specific_ image, almost too specific for it to have been conjured up on the spot, and she files that fact away for later analysis.

“He’s not an eighty year old man,” she insists, and purposefully ignores the way that Cece purses her lips disapprovingly at her and swiftly enquires about her latest modelling gig instead. (It turns out that her modelling gig involved dressing up as a camel, and, well, she guesses that explains the scenario she’d suggested. Also…a _camel_? She’s not sure she’ll ever understand the world of modelling; or, rather, if she'll ever want to.)

Cece's question does make her do a bit of a double-take though, because she doesn’t think that Nick's an eighty year old man, but she guesses she doesn’t know that for sure. He can’t be though, right? He doesn’t _sound_ like an eighty year old man… not that she really knows many eighty year old men, or, in fact, any eighty year old man, so she actually has no reference point on that at all and—oh god. _Oh god._ Is he?

_Are you an eighty year old man? – Jess xoxo_

_Maybe. – Nick_

_It was a serious question. – Jess xoxo_

_Who says I’m not being serious? – Nick_

_Nick. – Jess xoxo_

_Jess. – Nick_

_Are you? – Jess xoxo_

_No. – Nick_

_…but that’s also what I would say if I was an eighty year old man. – Nick_

She pauses, frowns at her screen a little. She guesses he has a very valid point there.

_Seriously though, I’m not. Do I sound like I'm eighty? – Nick_

_Well… – Jess xoxo_

She doesn’t hear from him again until several hours later when she’s almost forgotten what they were talking about in the first place.

_Are you an eighty year old man? – Nick_

_Maybe. – Jess xoxo_

Eighty year old man or not, she guesses it doesn't really change anything. He’s still _Nick_ , her stranger-friend. It’s not like she’s going to tell him where she lives or anything, so Cece’s concern is entirely misplaced and unnecessary.

* * *

He finds out very quickly, and _purely by accident_ , that having a fake girlfriend means it’s really easy for him to get out of whatever latest (stupid) idea Schmidt has. Schmidt saunters out of his bedroom (much too) early on a Sunday, wakes both him and Winston up (and, uh, it’s a Sunday so why is he dressed in a suit at 9 AM?), and then insists that they’re all going to go and get _facials_ together. He’s not sure he knows what a ‘facial’ is, but he’s also very sure that he doesn’t want one. Winston’s all against the facials idea too, which gives him hope for humanity, except then it turns out that he’s only against it _unless_ he’s allowed to bring his cat along…and that adds a whole new dimension of weird to the entire thing. (Why does he live with these clowns again?)

“Can’t go,” he manages to grumble out, and then swiftly pulls the covers over his head.

“Why not?”

He groans and lets out a high-pitched scream into his pillow because he knows them well enough to know that they’re not going to leave any time soon, and then slowly lowers the covers just enough so he can make out Schmidt and Winston’s faces (except they’re kinda hazy because his brain is still very much asleep.)

“Busy,” he grits out, hoping that they’ll accept that (weak) answer and go away.

Schmidt narrows his eyes at him for a second, but then a look of understanding gradually appears on his face until he’s full on wiggling his eyebrows at him, and Nick’s not sure if he’s ever hated him more.

“Say no more, my friend. Have fun with _Jess_ ,” he says, and then he _winks_ suggestively, and—right, well, he guesses this is his life now. Winston isn’t much better; he simply walks over, pats him on the shoulder, and then leaves the way he came with a “do it for Chicago”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Does he feel pathetic for playing along?

Yeah.

Does it stop him from doing it?

No.

He waits until he hears the front door slam decisively shut before he rolls out of bed and slaps himself across both cheeks. For a second, he contemplates messaging Jess and telling her everything that just happened because part of him thinks that she would probably find it amusing, his fingers hovering over the keyboard of his phone before he can stop himself, but then he slaps himself again and snaps out of it. What would he even say? _I know we don’t know each other, but I’m kinda using you as my fake girlfriend now?_ Uh, no.

Instead, he opts for a less incriminating version of his morning, and he spends the next hour getting a lecture on the benefits of facials. None of it is information that he particularly cares about or ever wanted to know (like, _ever_ : he’s a man, okay? A human man. Not that Schmidt and Winston aren’t, but… you get the point), but he finds it weirdly compelling when it’s being told to him through a phone screen behind a persona named Jess.

_My roommate tried to drag me out for a ‘group facial’ today. – Nick_

_You didn’t go? – Jess xoxo_

_Nope. – Nick_

_Why not? There are many benefits to facials, you know. I’ve heard that they’re supposed to help reduce stress and improve blood circulation. – Jess xoxo_

_I have great blood circulation. - Nick_

_Do you? - Jess xoxo_

_Probably not. - Nick_

(…)

_Can cats get facials? – Nick_

_Um, what? – Jess xoxo_

_Asking for a friend. – Nick_

…okay, so while he fully recognises that he shouldn’t use her to get out of things because it's probably crossing some invisible line, he now has the whole loft to himself for several hours and it’s blissfully silent. It might be wrong of him to be doing this, but he also doesn’t regret a thing.

(He likes to think of himself as a relatively good guy: emphasis on the _relatively._ )

* * *

Things take a turn into extremely-weird-town (population: two!) about a week later, and it’s maybe (okay, _definitely_ ) her fault. It’s just, well, Sam stayed over at hers for the first time since they started officially-but-also-not-officially (?) dating, and he’d woken her up the next day in very welcome, very twirly ways... but then, afterwards, and this is where it gets strange, he’d just rolled away from her, pressed a kiss on her forehead and… _fist-bumped_ her (with added noise-effects). She’d stared at his back for several minutes in a stunned silence, her brow furrowed in thought, because, yeah, maybe she’s been out of the game for a while and maybe she hasn’t been with many guys in general (thanks, Spencer), but she doesn’t remember that being a normal thing that happens? Or… is that a trendy move that all the guys are doing nowadays and she’s just too inexperienced to know?

She’s not entirely sure why she does it, but she reaches for her phone as soon as Sam leaves and she’s texting Nick before she can second guess herself.

_Can I ask you a personal question? I need some insight from a guy. – Jess xoxo_

_I'm leaning towards yes, but it depends what it is. – Nick_

_Have you ever, um, fist-bumped someone after, you know, doing the deed? The…bedroom deed, if you catch my drift. – Jess xoxo_

There’s a pause, and she sees the little dots on her screen appearing and then disappearing several times in quick succession, and oh dear _lord_ , why did she think it was a good idea to text him that? Jess, _boundaries_! She cringes hard, her cheeks burning up, and why is there suddenly no ventilation in this room? Why is it suddenly so hard to breathe? She watches as the dots disappear again, and then she can’t take it any longer and she’s hastily typing out a reply, trying her best to salvage whatever dignity she has left from the situation.

_Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m not sure why I texted you that. Ignore it. – Jess xoxo_

The dots appear again, and she finds herself holding her breath as she waits to see if he’ll actually reply this time or if she’s managed to ruin…whatever this is in one swift text.

_Do you seriously refer to sex as ‘the deed’? – Nick_

_The deed?! - Nick_

She exhales slowly, feeling tremendously relieved that he’d replied and didn’t seem too weirded out by the whole thing, but she makes a mental note _never_ to mention anything bedroom-related to him again. She feels like she’s crossed some sort of unspoken line, except, that’s silly, because, you know, they're strangers and he could very easily just stop replying and disappear from her life if he wanted to.

_Boyfriend troubles? – Nick_

_Yeah, something like that. – Jess xoxo_

* * *

_Hey, are you okay? I haven’t heard from you in a bit, and I just thought I’d check in. – Jess xoxo_

_I’m sorry about how weird I was the last time that we talked. I promise it won’t happen again. – Jess xoxo_

He doesn’t message her back for a few days, and contrary to what she thinks, it’s not because their last exchange was by far the _strangest_ exchange that they’ve had so far, even though it was (‘the deed’? seriously? who…is this girl?) Instead, he doesn't reply straightaway because he feels kinda bad about how he's been acting. She has a boyfriend, Miller. The fact that you're still using her as an excuse to get out of things is even less morally acceptable now.

The problem is, Schmidt and Winston have started teaming up in an attempt to get him to introduce them to her, and although he’s really fleshed out a backstory for their relationship at this point, all caught up in the make-believe, there are only so many times that he can pretend that she’s out of the country or broken all four limbs (at once).

“Nick, come on, we’ll behave,” Winston says, crossing his heart (or, at least, he thinks that's what he's trying to do: it's kinda hard to tell, if he's being honest). “We put up with Caroline for years, didn’t we?”

“Did you?” Nick replies, narrowing his eyes slightly, because he distinctly remembers both Winston and Schmidt refusing to even glance in her direction when she came over. “I don’t think you did.”

“Well, it’s not our fault: Caroline was awful for you,” Schmidt says, waving a hand dismissively in his direction, and enough time has passed now that he can admit that statement is probably true.

He’d never felt that comfortable when he was with Caroline, even after several years of being in a ‘serious relationship’ (also known as, a relationship that was long enough that it required _labels_ : ugh), always second-guessing what he was saying and doing. …and then, obviously, she’d dumped him out-of-the-blue and he’d cried for months and, _anyway_. He’s over it. He really is.

“Jess, on the other hand, is clearly great for you,” Schmidt continues, his choice of words sharply cutting through his thoughts. “I mean, you’re like… a different guy these days.”

He freezes, squints a little, almost on the verge of breaking and confessing everything.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Schmidt shrugs, takes a slow, careful sip of the Midori Sour in his hands _(ugh)_ , and then just reaches over and pats the hand that he’s got resting on the bar.

“You look happier,” he says, and then he promptly abandons them to flirt with some girl three steps away before he has time to come up with a retort.

(Schmidt might be right about his life ending by the time he’s thirty. It can’t be a good thing if he actually seems happier when he has a fake girlfriend compared to when he has a real one...)

_Have you ever kept a secret from someone and have it get a bit…out of control? – Nick_

He waits for her to reply, tapping his fingers anxiously on the bar. He’s not sure why he felt compelled to ask her, but then again, it’s not like there’s anyone else in his life he can talk to about this, is there? He’s pretty sure Schmidt and Winston would see through him instantly if he asked them, and they’d both be _extremely disappointed_ in him, and he’d have no other choice but to tag along for group facials. (He’s not proud of what he’s doing, he honestly isn’t, but hey, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.)

_I knew it. – Jess xoxo_

_I knew you were an eighty year old man. – Jess xoxo_

He blinks, and he feels himself smiling as he scans the words, and—goddamn it, Schmidt’s right, isn’t he? He really _is_ happier these days. Don't get him wrong, he doesn’t have a crush on her or anything remotely like that, because that would be _super weird_ , even for him (he doesn’t think he’s particularly shallow – at least, not compared to Schmidt – but anyone who seriously claims that looks aren’t important is clearly a pathological liar), but, uh, he kinda thinks she might be becoming one of his closest friends. Through _text_.

He either needs to meet new people, or—yeah, he really needs to meet new people if this is what his life has become.

_Yeah, sorry. Hate to break it to ya, but I figured it was time. – Nick_

_It’s okay. I mean, I’m also an eighty year old man so we’re even. – Jess xoxo_

_Cool. Glad we’re on the same page. – Nick._

There’s a pause, and then,

_(All jokes aside: did you want to talk about the secret thing? You can if you want. No judgements here.) – Jess xoxo_

He runs a hand through his hair, purses his lips slightly, but then he chickens out, because he’s never been great at deep talks and apparently that applies through text too.

_I’ll figure it out. – Nick_

_Okay. I mean it though, feel free to talk to me about anything. – Jess xoxo_

He tilts his head slightly and hesitates for a second about what to write back because she sounds really genuine, as if she honestly wants to help him talk through his problems. In the end though, he goes back to trying to lighten the mood because he likes all the jokey texts and witty comebacks that they send to each other, and he doesn’t really want her to realise what a mess he is in real life (or, what this ‘secret’ of his actually is.)

_…so, is fist-bumping after sex a good thing or a bad thing? Like, should it be something that I start doing? – Nick_

_Not what I meant when I said that you could talk to me about ‘anything’. – Jess xoxo_

_I believe you’re the one that brought it up first. – Nick_

_I’m genuinely curious. – Nick_

_Jess? – Nick_

_Jessica? – Nick_

She doesn’t reply, but he didn’t really expect her to. Their relationship has somehow evolved to the point where he sort of _knows_ what she’s going to do before she does it. He gets a weird surge of satisfaction every time he’s proven right, and he tries not to analyse why that is too much.

(Winston tries to make him sit through a recreation of _The Lion King_ involving him and his cat the next day, and he can’t help but slowly retreat out of the loft without saying a word, just letting him believe whatever he wants to believe. He’s in too deep now. There’s no going back from this. He really hopes no-one ever directly asks him where he’s going, because make-believe he’s great at, straight-up lies…not so much.)

* * *

She doesn’t tell Sam about Nick, even though sometimes he’ll ask her who on Earth she could possibly be texting at 1 AM in the morning (here’s another thing she’s realised about Nick: he rarely messages her before noon, and she doesn’t know if that means that he’s very much _unemployed,_ if he works nights, or if he happens to live in a different time-zone). She’s not trying to actively hide her relationship with Nick or anything, she just doesn’t think it’s particularly relevant. Nick’s just her friend who she started texting before she even met Sam and that’s…all there is to it, really. Plus, she kinda likes having a secret that’s just between her and her phone (and Cece). It makes her feel all powerful and mysterious, and she’s never really felt like that before. 

Cece, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree with her assessment, still clearly weirded out by the fact that she’s now ‘friends with a complete stranger’ (and, she’ll admit, it does sound weird to hear it phrased like that but when she's texting with Nick, it feels really, really...normal). They’re at dinner with their mutual friend Aly and they don’t even manage to make it through ordering starters before Cece brings up Nick again. It doesn’t take long before it ends up becoming an entire _process_ , in which Aly insists on being told every single little detail, including whether he uses punctuation marks or not. 

“If you ever want me to run a background check, let me know,” Aly offers, though Jess is already shaking her head at the thought, because that feels like it would be an invasion of privacy, even though—well, is it really? “I mean, I’d have to do it on the down-low, but if it stops you from accidentally inviting a serial killer into our lives, it’d be worth it—”

“—He’s not a serial killer!”

“How do you know that though?”

“I just do!”

Aly and Cece are distracted from the serial killer debate a few seconds later though, because Aly has scrolled up her text chain far enough that she’s read the texts about fist-bumping, and _oh god._ What has she done? (She feels a little bit guilty about sharing that fact about Sam, but—also, not, because it turns out that he not only likes to fist-bump after sex, but before he goes to sleep, when he wakes up, and in the middle of meals, and she’s still not entirely sure how she feels about it.)

_Don’t take this the wrong way, but my friends think you might be a serial killer. – Jess xoxo_

_…what’s the right way to take it? – Nick_

_I think you’d be the worst serial killer in the history of serial killers if that’s worth anything. – Jess xoxo_

_Thanks? – Nick_

and then, a few seconds later,

_...Out of curiosity, why do you think that though? - Nick_

_Um, do you want to be a good serial killer? - Jess xoxo_

_No. Just curious. - Nick_

_You just don't seem like the serial killer type. - Jess xoxo_

_What's the serial killer type? - Nick_

She blinks, rubs tiredly at her eyes a little.

_What are we doing right now? What are we talking about? - Jess xoxo_

_Serial killers. - Nick_

_Did ya hit your head or something? The conversation is right there. ^ - Nick_

_I think you're too...nice to be a serial killer. - Jess xoxo_

_Oh. Okay. - Nick_

It’s silent for a while, her phone eerily quiet, but then, just when she’s about to put her phone down and get changed into her (matching!) pyjamas and hopefully catch some sleep, it buzzes once more:

_Your friends know about me? – Nick_

_Kind of. - Jess xoxo_

_Do yours? – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, but they think you’re the opposite of a serial killer. – Nick_

_What’s the opposite of a serial killer? A...life-giver? I don't think that's a real thing. – Jess xoxo_

_Never mind. – Nick_

_Forget I said that. – Nick_

_How am I supposed to forget it if it’s right there? ^ – Jess xoxo_

_Night, Jess. – Nick_

_(...)_

_Seriously, it's right there. - Jess xoxo_

_Go to sleep, Jessica. - Nick_

(She does, but she doesn't forget it.)


	3. 333-333-333

He’s never really been amazingly into texting because typing words takes significantly more effort than he can usually be bothered with (hey, he’s _busy,_ okay? he has things to do, like, you know, uh, moving money around (in his closet) and filing documents). These text exchanges are making him rethink his whole stance on it though, because he’s learnt so much about Jess just through her _words_ and he thinks that’s pretty dope. He realises very quickly that as well as being genuinely hilarious, in the sort of way where she’s _smart_ about it (unlike Winston, whose brand of humour is, frankly, _bizarre_ , and Schmidt, whose jokes are almost always degrading to the entire human race), she’s also…infuriatingly stubborn. He wakes up the next morning at around noon, immediately checks his phone for any new messages from Jess as he does every day now, a wry smile twisting at his lips as he reads the series of texts. They start from around 6 AM in the morning (also known as, too damn early) and continue all the way until…oh, about five minutes ago.

_I’m still waiting for an answer: what’s the opposite of a serial killer? – Jess xoxo_

_I just typed that into Google, but it didn’t help. – Jess xoxo_

_I forgot that my computer was linked up to the projector and one of my students just asked me if he’s a serial killer because he ate cereal for breakfast. – Jess xoxo_

_(…)_

_Now I’m getting targeted ads for serial killers. – Jess xoxo_

_How do I get this to stop?! – Jess xoxo_

_Can you restart the internet? Is that a thing? If so, how do I do it? How do I restart the internet? – Jess xoxo_

_(…)_

_I should definitely not have googled serial killers on school property. – Jess xoxo_

_They probably have alerts set up for this sort of thing. – Jess xoxo_

_Oh god. – Jess xoxo_

_If I get arrested, this is entirely your fault and I expect you to bail me out from prison. – Jess xoxo_

He rubs a hand across his face, then forces himself to sit upright, fingers hovering over the keys. 

_Why would I bail you out of prison? I didn’t make you google serial killers. – Nick_

_In fact, I thought I told you to forget about this. – Nick_

_Well, I didn’t, so: what’s the opposite of a serial killer? – Jess xoxo_

_(…you really wouldn’t bail me out of prison?) – Jess xoxo_

He rolls his eyes slightly as he reads the words, not quite understanding why she’s so determined to persist with this line of questioning. When he’d typed that, he hadn’t meant ‘opposite of a serial killer’ in a _literal_ sense, but at the same time, he’s not sure it would really help his situation to clarify and explain that what he really meant was, uh, _they actually think you’re my girlfriend because I let them believe that and I’m going along with it._ He’s pretty confident that wouldn’t go down so well, especially because he’s already feeling (more than) a little sweaty about the whole thing. He slaps himself across both cheeks, forces himself to take a deep breath, ignores the question again and homes in on the second text she’d sent and maybe – okay, definitely – overcompensates in his panic:

_I'm not bailing you out, Jessica. – Nick_

_When you get to prison, could ya do me a favour and find out how bombs are built? I’ve always been curious. – Nick_

_Also. Don’t let down your guard in there. Never sleep. Everything’s a weapon. – Nick_

_Try and sneak in something to trade with too, like fancy cigars or something. You never know when you'll need it.– Nick_

_What?! – Jess xoxo_

_Okay, firstly, you know I’m not actually going to prison, right? – Jess xoxo_

_…and secondly, why do you want to know how bombs are built? Should I be worried? – Jess xoxo_

_You’re seriously telling me you’ve never wondered? – Nick_

_Yes, Nick. I have never wondered how to build a bomb. – Jess xoxo_

_Weirdo. – Nick_

There’s a long pause then, and for a second, he wonders if he’s offended her by calling her a weirdo. He didn’t mean it maliciously, of course, just—who hasn’t wondered how to build a bomb?! How can something so small create an explosion so big? He briefly wonders if he should say sorry, a pang of something that feels suspiciously like guilt pooling in his gut, but before he can type out a poorly crafted apology, his phone beeps again:

_Wait, you’re the one that wants to build bombs, but I’m the weirdo? – Jess xoxo_

He blinks hard, then clutches his phone a bit tighter as he types out a hasty reply. He’s not really…painting a good picture of himself here, is he? For all he knows, she could have a cop friend or something, and—oh, god, he’s an idiot.

_Whoa, hey, I didn’t say I wanted to build one, I just want to know how they work. Not the same thing. – Nick_

_Why do you want to know how they work?! - Jess xoxo_

_I like science. I used to teach it at a community college, actually. – Nick_

_…you did? – Jess xoxo_

_No. – Nick_

_Didn’t think you were going to fact-check me. – Nick_

_I don’t think you’re in a position to judge, Jessica. You’re the one that’s been researching serial killers. – Nick_

_I wasn’t researching them! – Jess xoxo_

_We both know you were. – Nick_

There’s another long pause then, long enough that he manages to drag himself out of bed and get himself (mostly) dressed, but just when he’s about to brave the kitchen and rummage around for some cereal, his phone beeps again, and he stays in his room just a bit longer. He doesn’t think that anyone else would be home right now because it’s almost 1 PM, but at the same time, it’s just easier to keep this…whatever this is between him and Jess, without his roommates constantly looking over his shoulder and making lewd remarks. (To be fair, they do think he's texting his girlfriend, rather than, uh, casually discussing serial killers with a girl he’s never met, so he guesses he can't be _that_ mad at them.)

_What’s the opposite of a serial killer?? – Jess xoxo_

_Seriously? – Nick_

_Jess, I swear to god, I didn’t mean anything by it. – Nick_

_If you didn’t mean anything by it, then why won’t you just tell me what you meant? – Jess xoxo_

_Because. – Nick_

_You’re the worst. – Jess xoxo_

_Yep. – Nick_

_I have to get back to class now, but this isn’t over. – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, it is. – Nick_

_:( - Jess xoxo_

* * *

She ends up telling Sam about Nick, though she doesn’t mean to do it at all. It’s just, Nick’s constantly telling her all these funny stories and theories about his life, and it just…slips out one day. They’re having a quick breakfast at hers before Sam leaves for his shift at the hospital, and he’s telling her about this kid that visited his clinic yesterday who had a cranberry stuck in his ear and—

“—That happened to Nick’s friend too! Except, you know, I’m pretty sure that his friend wasn’t five.”

There’s a pause then, Sam twisting his head to squint at her a little, shooting her a perplexed look, and she suddenly realises exactly what she had said.

“…Uh, who’s Nick?”

“Just a friend,” she replies, though her voice sounds oddly high-pitched to her ears, so she tries again. “A friend.”

Sam studies her for a moment, his eyes searching her face, and she’s weirdly nervous even though she shouldn’t be. He seems to find what he’s looking for though, because he leans forward and kisses her, and then offers her his hand for a fist-bump. She eyes it warily, because she’s still a little bit _weirded_ out by this whole fist-bumping thing, and maybe Sam gets it, because he retracts it again, taking a careful sip of his coffee before speaking.

“That’s cool,” he says, all casual and nonchalant. “I get it.”

She blinks.

“Um, what do you mean? What do you get?”

“I have friends that are girls,” he replies, except there’s an odd emphasis on the word _friends_ that she’s not so sure she likes, his voice going all low on the word.

She bites her bottom lip, the possible implications to his words slowly registering in her head, but before she can make sense of them, he’s suddenly getting up from his seat, straightening out his clothes, and leaning down to kiss her again, his lips moving against hers in a way that makes her relax. She’s being paranoid, right? Lately, he's been staying over practically every other night so he can’t have meant ‘friends that are girls’ in a sense that wasn’t strictly platonic? Though, if she really thinks about it, she guesses they’ve never talked about what exactly they are to one another. She’s always just assumed that they were exclusive, but—oh god. Maybe she’s misread the whole situation?

She waits until she's seen Sam disappear in the elevator and then counts to five under her breath, before pulling out her phone from her pocket and typing out a quick message:

_If a guy says that they have ‘friends that are girls’, what does that mean? – Jess xoxo_

_That they have friends that are girls? – Nick_

_Yeah, but what does ‘friend’ mean? – Jess xoxo_

_Friend:_ _a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations._ _– Nick_

_Did you just Google that? – Jess xoxo_

_What, you don’t think I’m smart enough to know what the word ‘friend’ means? – Nick_

_I don’t think you’re smart enough to use the word ‘whom’ in your texts. – Jess xoxo_

_Ouch. - Nick_

_That hurts, Jess. – Nick_

_I'll have you know that I went to law school and I've passed the bar exam. - Nick_

_Right. Of course. - Jess xoxo_

_No, really, I did. - Nick_

_Yeah, just like you taught science at community college. - Jess xoxo_

_I'm being 100% serious right now. - Nick_

_Whatever you say, Nick. - Jess xoxo_

She pauses, chews her bottom lip for a second, scrolling up and rereading the definition even though she knows she shouldn’t take it literally. It _does_ say that a friend is someone that is typically exclusive of sexual relations though… so maybe she’s in the clear?

Nick doesn’t reply again until later that evening, just when she’s about to take a shower and wait for Sam to come over.

_Hey, in all honesty, I wouldn’t read too much into it. Guys say stupid things they don’t mean all the time. – Nick_

_Like, ‘my friends think you’re the opposite of a serial killer’? – Jess xoxo_

There's a slight pause, and she sees the dots on her screen disappearing and reappearing a few times:

_Oh my god. – Nick_

_I’m trying to be helpful here. – Nick_

_Sorry. – Jess xoxo_

_Go ahead. – Jess xoxo_

_Look, don’t worry about it, okay? He’d be an idiot to date another girl. - Nick_

She's still not entirely convinced that there's nothing to be concerned about, but she realises she's grinning at the words on her screen, suddenly feeling considerably lighter. She knows she only really knows Nick through text, but he’s just so easy to talk to about everything; he makes her laugh, teases her relentlessly, but, at the same time, he’s also achingly… _sweet_ sometimes, in a way that makes her desperately wish that she knew him in real life. She knows it's a silly thought, because for all she knows, he lives on the other side of the continent, but it'd be nice. Really, really nice.

* * *

Two weeks pass, and then Coach announces entirely out-of-the-blue that he’s going to be crashing with them for the foreseeable future after breaking up with his long-term girlfriend. Problem is, there’s only three rooms in the loft and they’re all occupied. He’s not sure how it happens, but before he knows it, he’s being ordered to give up his room for Coach, and no matter how hard he protests that the idea is _stupid_ and _unfair_ because it’s _his room_ and why does he need to give up his bed for Coach when Coach can just sleep on the couch, Schmidt and Winston won’t budge, and _ugh_ , he hates them both so much.

“Nick, don’t make that face,” Schmidt comments, with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “It has to be you, because you’re the only one with somewhere else to stay.”

“What are you talking about? Where else would I go? I live here!”

Schmidt eyes him for a second, and then reaches out and slaps the back of his head before he has enough time to duck.

“You have a girlfriend, you dummy.”

He swallows, his throat suddenly going dry, because—yeah, he guesses that logic makes sense, except for the fact that, you know, he doesn’t _actually_ have a girlfriend and he’s just been letting them believe that he did, and oh god, oh god, why is Schmidt looking at him like that and why does he suddenly feel so sticky and why are his legs moving backwards—

“Nick _,_ what are you doing—”

“Nothing! I’m not doing anything!”

“Nick! Stop moonwalking away!”

“I’m not! I’m just—I need to grab something from my room, okay?”

He feels a hard grip on his shoulder then, hard enough that it makes him freeze up and forget what he was on the verge of confessing for a second, his eyes wide—

“—I need everyone to shut up and answer one simple question: you sons of bitches ready to party?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever been so glad to see Coach, especially because Coach immediately drags all three of them out of the loft and to the bar, and he kinda, sorta thinks he needs alcohol inside of him if he’s going to have to deal with Schmidt and the way he’s still eyeing him suspiciously.

In the end though, he’s saved from all of it, because Schmidt immediately catches the eye of some girl sitting with her friends across the room, pausing mid-sip and staring at her for a good ten seconds without saying anything.

(“Schmidt? Buddy, you still in there?”)

He doesn’t really believe that _eye conversations_ are a thing, but Schmidt seems to be convinced, going as far as to bet him $10 that he’ll get her number. He goes along with it, because, hey, he could use an extra $10 (that's like what? three or four burritos?) and he’d prefer not to have Schmidt sitting here because he could very easily bring up the conversation they had from earlier again. Schmidt shakes his hand and then slides out of the booth, sauntering over to the girls, almost shaking his hips as he walks over, and ugh _, jar_. He watches Schmidt’s shameless attempts at flirting for a minute (too long), shaking his head slightly as Schmidt smoothly seats himself down at their table and slides his arm around the back of one of their chairs. The girl he's targeting, to her credit, immediately sits upright, rolling her eyes at him, while the second girl just laughs, and the third just stares at the exchange with a bemused expression on her face, reaching up to nudge her glasses up.

Winston waves a hand over his face then, and he returns his attention back to his own table, though it’s not long before Coach claims he’s had enough of the bar and wants to head down to a strip club like the ‘good old days’. He immediately protests, because he very much doesn’t want to move from his chair right now because he’s _comfortable_ and he’s got a beer in his hand, but the guys are persistent and he’s weak, so he’s pulled up before he knows it. He’s halfway out of the door when he tugs his phone out of his pocket and types out a quick text, hoping that Jess is having a better night than he is, wherever she is.

_Hey. What are you up to tonight? – Nick_

_Not much. I’m just having a couple of drinks with some friends. You? – Jess xoxo_

_Same, actually. – Nick_

_Have a good night. – Nick_

_Right back at ya! – Jess xoxo_

“Heard you’re whipped now,” Coach comments once they’re outside, shaking his head disapprovingly at him. “Completely, entirely, 100% _whipped_.”

He blinks at the interruption, glancing up from his phone.

“What? I'm not whipped.”

“You’re checking in with your girlfriend right now, aren’t you?”

“I—uh, _no_ , I’m not,” he manages to stammer out, except then he’s suddenly staring straight ahead, his eyes going wide as Coach’s words fully register in his head, becoming starkly aware that he was kinda checking in on her as if she really _was_ his girlfriend.

Oh man.

Oh _god_.

Miller, get a grip.

* * *

It’s not unusual for Cece to get hit on at a bar; in fact, if she’s honest, it’s unusual for Cece _not_ to get hit on at a bar. They’re used to it at this point: she and Aly have perfected the art of continuing their conversations while completely ignoring the latest person that’s trying to get Cece’s attention. There’s something different this time though: the guy in front of them is shamelessly flirting with Cece, his chest all puffed up and his hand almost, kinda, stroking her arm, but Cece isn’t outright rejecting his advances like she normally does. Instead, she just rolls her eyes at him and allows him to take a seat next to her, and that’s _huge_ for Cece. She exchanges glances with Aly, because this is weird enough that she’s not exactly sure what she should say, but then Aly just shrugs at her and starts a conversation, her voice flat and deadpan as always.

“So…are you here with your friends?”

“Yeah,” he replies, then jerks his thumb at a table on the opposite side of the room where three guys are sitting, pointing out each one in turn. “That one’s in love with his cat, that one’s in love with his girlfriend, and that one’s—well, he’s just gone through a messy breakup, actually.”

She squints in the direction that he'd pointed, trying her best to connect each of them to the words that he's saying. The three guys are having what looks like a heated conversation about something, but then suddenly, the one that loves his cat and the one that’s just gone through a breakup are pulling the other guy up, and—well, then she can't help but start giggling because the guy’s got the weirdest expression she’s ever seen on his face, his features all crumpled up and his mouth curved downwards. If she had to describe it to a sketch artist, she’d probably say that it looked a bit like a turtle, though that's partly because she’s been teaching ocean conservation at school this week and she has seahorses and jellyfish on her brain. (Save the planet, kids!)

“Your friends look like they’re leaving,” Cece points out then, glancing at her nails, a seemingly unaffected look on her face, though Jess knows better and the fact that he’s even sitting down with them means that she likes him a _little._ “You should probably go.”

To his credit, he’s not at all deterred by Cece’s dismissal, smoothly slipping out of his seat and placing a $10 dollar bill on the table to pay for her drinks, leaving the way he came with a ‘girl, I’m gonna marry you.’ Here’s the weird thing though: that note? It already somehow had his number on, as if he’d prepared in advance for this moment. The three of them watch him leave the bar, then stare at each other at the same time, and end up in a long debate about whether that was a romantic move or a straight-up douchebag one. (Douchebag wins out eventually, though she really does try hard to fight for the other side—hey, she loves _love_ , okay?)

She messages Nick when she's on her way home, because they get stuck in traffic and there's nothing else for her to do (and, okay, maybe she's _slightly_ tipsy).

_I saw a human turtle today. – Jess xoxo_

_Is that code for something, or…? – Nick_

_Nope. – Jess xoxo_

_Wait, what do you think it’s code for? – Jess xoxo_

_Weird sex stuff. – Nick_

_Ew, what? No! – Jess xoxo_

_Hey, you’re the one that refers to sex as ‘the bedroom deed’. – Nick_

She pulls a face, her cheeks feeling warm from embarrassment. What were you thinking, Past Jess?

_Shut up. – Jess xoxo_

_Can we please agree to never bring that up again? - Jess xoxo_

_Sure, but only if you drop the serial killer thing. - Nick_

_I knew you meant something by it. - Jess xoxo_

_Do we have a deal or not? - Nick_

_Deal. - Jess xoxo_

It's silent for a while, but then her fingers are suddenly moving across her keyboard, her brain a little too buzzed on pink wine to stop her from sending the text.

_What kind of sex stuff would you use 'human turtle' to describe? - Jess xoxo_

_Uh. - Nick_

_Actually, don't answer that. - Jess xoxo_

_You're learning. - Nick_

_Very good. - Nick_


	4. 444-444-444

As it turns out (and because the universe hates him), Schmidt doesn’t forget about their conversation and his almost confession. Schmidt saunters into the kitchen the next day in his blue kimono ( _ugh_ ) and points a finger directly in his face while he’s in the middle of shovelling a spoonful of cereal into his mouth:

“I think you may be lying to me about something.”

He does his best to ignore Schmidt, purposefully continuing eating as if he’d never spoken, but Schmidt doesn’t give up, simply reaching out and pulling the bowl out from under his spoon until there’s milk splattered all over the table. He sighs, slowly turning his head to face him, and _damn it_ , why is his back sweaty already? It’s not like Schmidt actually knows anything.

“Nick, what’s going on?” Schmidt asks, taking one step closer, levelling his gaze at him—except, then his gaze drops down until he’s kinda just staring straight at his crotch. “Wait, don’t tell me: are you having…man problems?”

He blinks.

“What? No!”

Schmidt raises his head back up and narrows his eyes at him.

“Then, what is it?”

“What kind of man problems did you think I had?!”

Schmidt shrugs.

“I don’t want to get too graphic, but I was picturing something gooey—”

“—Never picture it.”

Schmidt shrugs again.

  
“I figured that something must have happened between you and Jess because you started moonwalking out of the room when I mentioned her yesterday – which, _by the way,_ is still an absolutely ridiculous thing to do – and you slept on the couch last night, but you can’t have broken up with her because you’re still all weirdly smiley, so…”

“I don’t have man problems, Schmidt!”

There’s a pause, and then…

“Are you sure? It’s a vital part of my spreadsheet, so if you are having them, I need to make changes to the numbers—”

“Wait, you’re tracking my man problems now?”

“…so, you _do_ have man problems?”

“Oh my god,” he moans out, rubbing a hand over his face. “Loft meeting: now!”

He manages to make it through the loft meeting without revealing anything about Jess, mostly thanks to the fact that Schmidt’s spreadsheets have now evolved from a simple charting of their individual life goals to an absurdly invasive breakdown of their lives, including – and not limited to – how many times they pee in and out of the loft (he’s not sure how he tracks the latter, and he also doesn’t really want to know).

“Schmidt, what the hell is this?”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining, Nick,” Schmidt replies, scowling a little, showing him the uphill curve on the screen, which apparently corresponds to his life. “I was worried that you wouldn’t make it, you know, just in general, but you’ve been doing pretty well since you met Jess, despite the man problems.”

He protests at the man problems once again, but then he falls silent, grimacing slightly as he sees _marriage_ and _kids_ plotted out on the x-axis. It almost looks like he’s going to make it too, if this curve follows the trajectory that’s been predicted, and he’s not sure whether seeing this makes him feel extra pathetic about the fake girlfriend thing, or—yeah, _pathetic_. Miller, you need come clean soon before everything goes to shit.

“Let me see mine,” Winston says then, scrambling for the keyboard before any of them can do anything, and— _huh_.

Winston’s graph appears to predict that he should have died, uh, _two months ago_ , which really says all there is to say about the reliability of Schmidt’s Excel algorithms. The curve is mostly flat until about a year ago, a steady plateau of twenty something years, and then there’s a sudden sharp decline which takes the curve all the way past zero and well into the negative region (he’s not saying that he believes in the afterlife or anything, but does the graph going negative mean that Winston’s going to… _hell_? Even for Schmidt, that seems a bit much.)

“Schmidt, what is this?”

Schmidt just shrugs unhelpfully and leans over and points at the turning point.

“That’s when you got your cat,” he says.

Winston lets out an outraged gasp at that and immediately picks up Furguson from the table and covers his ears, mumbling nonsensical reassuring sentences to him and rocking him back and forth in his arms.

“Jar, Schmidt,” Nick says, tilting his head towards the almost overflowing jar sitting on edge of the table. “That’s a jar for sure.”

“I know, I know, I already have the money ready,” Schmidt grumbles, pulling out a $5 bill from his pocket and shoving it aggressively into the jar. “…but Nick, you didn’t have to watch him sing _The Circle of Life_ on repeat while holding his cat up in the air the other day: _I did!_ ”

…which, all in all, is a very fair point.

“Wait, I missed Winston singing with his cat?!” Coach exclaims, looking genuinely curious. “Were their costumes involved, or—”

“—Don’t give him any ideas!”

_What are you up to today? Fun weekend plans? – Jess xoxo_

He smiles a little at the words on the screen, glances up to where his roommates plus Coach are now half-wrestling each other to the floor, while Furguson is just perched on the table serenely looking on. So, yeah, maybe this is starting to feel a little more intense than just a casual rapport between two strangers, and maybe there’s some truth to what Schmidt was saying the other day about him being visibly happier nowadays, and maybe he should really start drawing a line somewhere before he inevitably screws everything up, but hey, it’s not like he’s _in love_ with her or believes she’s _actually_ his girlfriend. He just likes talking to her. Nothing wrong with that.

_Something like that. – Nick_

_I suspect I’m probably going to have to sit through a performance of The Lion King performed by my roommate and his cat. – Nick_

_Wait, what? Seriously? – Jess xoxo_

_That sounds amazing! – Jess xoxo_

_I’d love to see that! – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, I thought you’d say that. – Nick_

He swears to himself that he’ll tell everyone he made up the girlfriend thing by the end of the week.

* * *

Nick doesn’t reply to her for _two whole weeks_ , and she can feel that something’s off. Problem is, she doesn’t know him in real life, so she doesn’t know if he’s avoiding her because she did something wrong (except she’s 100% sure she didn’t), if he’s just super busy, if his phone got stolen, if he no longer wants her to text him anymore, or, even, if he found out that he might have cancer and he’s _dying_. She feels weirdly hollow without Nick’s presence in her life, even though he’s still just a guy in her phone. She finds herself checking her phone religiously and opening her message thread with him, even when she knows she has no notifications, her heart sinking every time she’s greeted with the same few messages. She tries to probe a little, sends him a casual _how are you?_ , but to no avail.

She’s halfway through her third rerun of _Dirty Dancing_ when Aly grabs a pair of scissors from the kitchen and promptly cuts the cable, and—

“—hey! I was watching that!”

Aly rolls her eyes, but she slides over to sit next to her, reaching out and patting her knee a few times.

“What happened with Sam?”

She tilts her head.

“Nothing,” she replies, because everything with Sam has been going well so far, despite the whole ‘friends that are girls’ thing, and she’s not quite sure what Aly wants from her. “I just wanted to watch this.”

Aly narrows her eyes and stares at her with her very best _cop look_ , and she feels her resolve breaking, even though she still has no idea what Aly wants.

“Jess, come on,” Aly says, shaking her head almost pityingly at her, tapping her knee again. “We all know this is your breakup film.”

“Sam and I are fine,” she replies, and it’s the truth.

Aly narrows her eyes even further, searches her face for a second, and then gives her a thoughtful look.

“Right, so this is about…Nick?”

She shoots upright, eyes wide, as it hits her.

“No.”

“ _Jess_.”

“Maybe.”

—and oh god, now that it’s been pointed out to her, she does sort of feel like she’s been going through a breakup over the past few days. With a guy she wasn’t dating. With a guy she _hasn’t even met._

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really,” she says, her eyes still wide from her realisation. “I just haven’t heard from him in two weeks, and I—”

“—Wait, he doesn’t text you for two weeks and you break out _Dirty Dancing_?! That’s insane, Jess,” Aly exclaims, rolling her eyes. “He’s probably just busy or something.”

She purses her lips, tilts her head a little, because she _is_ making a lot of sense right now. It’s only been two weeks, and she needs to give him some space. It’s not like he owes her anything, but she just—she just can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. She just hopes that wherever he is, he’s doing okay.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I’m always right,” Aly corrects.

_Hey, just checking in again. – Jess xoxo_

_Are you okay? – Jess xoxo_

* * *

He doesn’t end up telling anyone about the fake girlfriend thing, because he’s distracted by Schmidt’s antics like he usually is. Schmidt enters full party planning mode midway through the week, proudly announcing the occasion on top of the dining room table through a speakerphone:

“This month marks our fourth year of living in this loft so we’re obviously going to be having an anniversary party,” Schmidt declares. “The theme will, of course, be fruit and flowers.”

He exchanges looks with Winston, both pulling matching faces of horror. The last three anniversary parties hadn’t exactly gone well: he’d ended up getting papercuts in _weird_ - _ass_ – emphasis on the _ass_ – places after the paper one, because Schmidt insisted that they had to wear these stupid paper outfits and his was bizarrely sharp, Winston had gotten completely lost in a cotton field at 2 AM during the cotton one and they’d had to call out the fire department to locate him (he claims he’s ‘never been the same’, except, well, he kinda is), and—let’s not talk about the leather one. The things he’d seen that night. The images.

“First order of business: I need your head measurements so that I can order us matching flower crowns.”

“Matching _what_?”

“The theme is fruit and flowers, Nick,” Schmidt explains matter-of-factly, rolling his eyes a little. “…so obviously, we have to get flower crowns.”

“No way,” he retorts, shaking his head, eyes wide in horror. “You are out of your mind, pal.”

“Fine, then I’ll just have to guess!”

“ _Fine!_ ”

It gets worse though. Not only is Schmidt a hundred times more annoying than he usually is, but he also confiscates all their phones when they’re _sleeping_ because he claims they’re distractions ( _“especially_ yours, Nick.”) He tries to play the (fake) girlfriend card, even though that was the opposite of what he’d intended to do this week, but Schmidt just laughs him off, saying that she’ll understand if she really loved him (except, he kinda thinks that if he did have a real girlfriend, she probably _wouldn’t_ understand why he suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth for this).

He’s gotten so used to being able to message Jess at all hours of the day that living without it feels wrong in a way that he can’t quite put his finger on. His hands are constantly itching to reach into his pocket and then coming up empty, his mind filled with jokes and stories that he wants to tell her but can’t. He knows that the magnitude of his reaction should really serve as some sort of red flag because he shouldn’t feel so lost without her, but he also can’t quite find it in himself to care. They’re friends, it’s _fine_.

In the end, he relents and agrees to wear a stupid flower crown to the stupid party _if_ Schmidt agrees to give him his phone back, and Schmidt not only gives him back his phone, but also tries to Fredo kiss him (he escapes, _just_ , but it also serves to remind him that this is maybe the most action he’s gotten in an embarrassingly long time and god, he really needs to sort his life out soon). He unlocks his phone as soon as Schmidt places it in his hand, his heart beating faster as he spots the eleven unread messages from Jess, though it’s quickly replaced with a pang of guilt as he skims the words. He gets it; he guesses he’d be in the same position if she’d been the one that disappeared without warning.

_God, Jess, I’m sorry. – Nick_

_I’m alive. – Nick_

_My roommate confiscated my phone. – Nick_

_I know that sounds like a lie, but it’s not. – Nick_

There’s a pause, and he hopes that Schmidt hasn’t just inadvertently messed everything up for him (the _idiot_ ), but then his phone buzzes, the feel of it comfortingly familiar in his hands:

_It’s fine. I’m just glad that you’re okay! – Jess xoxo_

He smiles, the sight of her name flashing across his screen making him feel instantly more like himself than he has in days. His fingers hover over the keys, and then, because he can’t help himself and he’s kinda riding on a surge of newly found adrenaline,

_Were you worried about me, Jessica? – Nick_

The reply comes quick, almost as if she’d been waiting for him to ask that question.

_No. – Jess xoxo_

_Cool. – Nick_

His phone stays silent for a few minutes, but he can’t stop himself from staring at the screen, holding his breath. The moment feels weirdly tense, the air in his room suddenly all heavy.

_Okay, fine. – Jess xoxo_

_Yes, I was worried about you! – Jess xoxo_

_You stopped replying and I didn’t know if something happened to you. – Jess xoxo_

_It’s stupid, I know, because it was only two weeks, but…yeah, I was worried. – Jess xoxo_

He runs a hand through his hair, feeling another surge of guilt flooding his chest at the fact that she’d genuinely been concerned about his well-being, even though none of this was exactly his fault.

_I wouldn’t just disappear, you know. – Nick_

_Promise? – Jess xoxo_

_Promise. – Nick_

* * *

Cece tries to get them to accompany her to a party two weeks later for ‘moral support’ but Aly claims that she has an important date with her couch and a glass of wine that she ‘really can’t miss’, while she point-blank refuses because she’s always felt uncomfortable at the type of parties that Cece frequents. Instead, she spends the evening holed up in her room listening to Taylor Swift while she makes a start on the scarf that she’s been planning on knitting Cece for her birthday. She texts Nick, of course, because ever since he’s resurfaced, he’s been texting her even more than he used to, to the extent that she’s getting an almost steady commentary of his days. The increasingly frequent texts don’t bother her one bit; she _likes_ them.

_Currently trying to escape from a party. – Nick_

_What’s your excuse? – Jess xoxo_

_Uh, I was just going to walk out of the door when no-one’s looking. – Nick_

_What? You can’t just walk out! You have to have an excuse! – Jess xoxo_

_Like what? – Nick_

_Your cat died? – Jess xoxo_

_Your mind immediately went to death? – Nick_

_That’s dark, Jess. – Nick_

_Also, I don’t have a cat, so. – Nick_

_You don’t? I thought you mentioned a cat. – Jess xoxo_

_It’s my roommate’s. – Nick_

_Oh. – Jess xoxo_

_So…what you’re saying is that I should tell my roommate that his cat has died and then walk out of the party? That’s your advice? – Nick_

_No, that’s not what I meant. – Jess xoxo_

_Are ya sure? That’s what it sounds like to me. – Nick_

_No, I take it back. I watched an episode of The Walking Dead last night and I guess all the blood is still on my mind. – Jess xoxo_

_I’m going to do it. – Nick_

_What? - Jess xoxo_

_Nick, wait. Don’t. – Jess xoxo_

_Don’t do that. – Jess xoxo_

_Nick! – Jess xoxo_

_That’s really not what I meant! – Jess xoxo_

_…Nick? – Jess xoxo_

She’s distracted then by Cece calling and asking her to pick her up from the party she’s at because she can’t find her keys, and even though she’s really quite comfortable in her room, she’s never been very good at saying no to people, _especially_ Cece and Aly. She gets to the venue, peers cautiously through the door, and it takes her a good five seconds to realise what she’s staring at. She’s been to this hall before, even put on a handbells concert here with some of her students, but this is not what it normally looks like. There are people walking around dressed in loud flowery shirts with flower crowns perched on their heads, the walls are decorated with petals and dried fruit wreaths of all colours, and it smells overwhelmingly floral even from out here…and okay, now she kinda understands why Cece wanted them at this party for moral support, because whatever this is? It’s _a lot_.

She takes a deep breath and then turns to go in, except a guy rushes straight out of the door at the exact same time. She crashes into him clumsily, hears a yelp, and then looks up to see that he’s now half-drenched with the beer that he’s clutching in his left hand.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she apologises profusely, grimacing at herself. Way to go, Jess.

The guy glances down at himself, shakes his head a little, and then offers her a wry smile. His face looks vaguely familiar to her, but she’s also quite certain that they’ve never met, so she tables that thought for later.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies, reaching up and wiping at the material of the flowery shirt he’s wearing with his free hand before shrugging it off, and then quickly removes the crown he’s wearing too. He’s dressed all casual underneath in a worn-out dark red hoodie, looking a bit like he’s just rolled out of bed, and the stark contrast between the two looks makes her smile despite herself.

“Honestly, you’ve just done me a huge favour. Now I actually have an excuse not to wear this damn thing.”

“Not your style?”

He blinks at her and pulls a face, his mouth curving downwards, and she suddenly realises where she knows him from. He’s friends with the guy that Cece met at the bar, right? The one that had casually dropped that $10 bill on the table and said he was going to marry her? Cece hadn’t mentioned him at all since that night so she'd assumed that nothing had come from it, but if she’s here at a party for him and didn’t explicitly tell them about it, it must mean that she really likes this guy. She knew it! _She knew it!_

“Do I look like someone who dresses like that on a regular basis?”

She tilts her head, his voice cutting through her thoughts, and shrugs at him slowly.

“I don’t know,” she tells him honestly, because she suspects not, but also—he didn’t look _terrible_ dressed like that. You know, objectively speaking. His hair is all ruffled from the crown he was wearing and his eyes are warm, and he’s kinda rugged and rumpled in a sort of small-town PI kind of way. She’s not saying he’s her type, but he's also not _not_ her type. Ahem.

“Maybe?”

  
“Well, I don’t,” he replies curtly, sounding so defensive and borderline offended by the suggestion, his face all scrunched up again in that turtlelike frown, that she can’t help but crack a smile.

“Are you sure?”

“Very.”

She smiles then, watching as the corners of his lips quirk up ever so slightly, except then neither of them says anything further and they’re just two strangers staring at one another and her mouth is getting kinda dry and her cheeks are starting to feel warm—and, um, _Jess_? Say something? Also, uh, you have a kind-of-but-maybe-not boyfriend so you should probably not be blushing right now? And…wait, isn’t this the friend that’s in love with his girlfriend? Get a hold of yourself, Jess.

He clears his throat then, runs a hand messily through his hair, gesturing slightly at the fact that she’s still standing right in front of him, blocking his path forward.

“Uh, hate to be this guy, but I’m kinda late for something, so…”

“Oh! Sorry, yeah, um, I’ll get out of your way,” she says, jumping to the side, holding her breath as he nods at her once and then awkwardly sidles past her and away. “And I’m sorry again!”

She's halfway through interrogating Cece about bar guy, sitting in the corner of the hall surrounded by fruit baskets, when her phone beeps, just once:

_I escaped. Roommate still thinks his cat is alive. - Nick_

_...his cat is alive, right? - Jess xoxo_

_What? - Nick_

_Yeah, of course. - Nick_

_Okay, just checking. Kind of sounded like you'd killed it. - Jess xoxo_

_You think I'd kill a cat? - Nick_

_Seriously, Jess? - Nick_

_If you did, I'd help you bury the body. - Jess xoxo_

_I didn't kill the cat! - Nick_

She lets out a giggle then, unable to stop herself, because there's just something so satisfying about being able to tease him like this over text with no consequences. She imagines some guy somewhere, all grumpy as he reads her texts, brow furrowed as he tries to think of a comeback.

"Babe, can I ask you something?" Cece says then, eyeing her suspiciously. "But you have to promise not to get mad."

She glances up, slides her phone back in her purse and gives her a wary look.

"You don't... _like_ him, right?" 

"What?"

"Nick, I mean," she clarifies, tilting her head slightly towards her purse. "You don't have _feelings_ for him, right?"

She blinks several times in quick succession, shakes her head rapidly, except she feels weirdly flushed all of a sudden.

"No!" She retorts loudly, and then, lowers her voice as she sees multiple people swing their heads to look in their direction. "No, I don't. I mean, I don't even know the guy...and, um, I'm with Sam!"

"Right," Cece replies, except she doesn't sound entirely convinced.

That would be ridiculous though, right? To have feelings for a guy that she's never even met? No, they're just friends, and that's really...all there is to it.


	5. 555-555-555

He doesn’t manage to escape the party entirely in the end. He manages to make it halfway between the ridiculous _flower_ party and the safety of the loft when he gets a string of missed calls from Schmidt, followed by a steady stream of aggressive texts asking him where he vanished to:

_Nick, if you don’t come back, I’m going to knife you. – Schmidt_

_I’m not kidding: if you don’t come back, I’ll knife you and I’ll pour your blood on the ground. I’ll knife you right by the urinals, Nick. – Schmidt_

_You’ll…pour my blood on the ground?! – Nick_

_What does that even mean? – Nick_

_Exactly how it sounds, Nicholas. - Schmidt_

_(…)_

_Nick, seriously, where are you? – Schmidt_

_I swear, if you don’t come back in the next twenty minutes, I’m going to knife you! – Schmidt_

_Oh my god. – Nick_

_Enough with the knifing! – Nick_

For a long minute, he contemplates turning his phone off and throwing it in a ditch somewhere, but then he wouldn’t be able to continue the debate he’s having with Jess at the same time about whether it’d be better to bury a cat in the woods or the desert and he’s kinda digging it. (The answer, by the way, is _obviously_ desert; he’s not a psychopath.) He’s not really sure what it says about him – or them – that their conversations tend to always end up circling around serial killers and cat murders, but hey, it keeps things interesting. It's not like he'd actually kill anything in real life. (correction: kill anything _on purpose;_ there might have been a time when he'd tried to give a frog cereal flakes and it'd died, but that was for _science_. Completely different thing.)

_Nick, if you come back, I’ll arrange for your clothes to be dry-cleaned for a month. – Schmidt_

_Even my socks? - Nick_

_Why wouldn't I include socks? - Schmidt_

He sighs, slaps himself across both cheeks, and then slowly turns around and starts walking back to the party. He’s doing this for _Schmidt_ and not because he hates laundry and he’s currently on his last set of clean underwear, but—it helps. He’s not ashamed to admit that. (Laundry’s complicated, okay? Also, it takes way too long, and he’s got work and a half-written detective novel and, uh, texts to write.)

Schmidt immediately pulls him through the door as soon as he spots him, looking suspiciously like he’s been hovering at the entrance just waiting for him to reappear again. He also seems to be wearing not just one flower crown now, but _three_ , all stacked up precariously on his head, and—

“You look ridiculous, Schmidtty.”

Schmidt narrows his eyes a fraction, straightens his posture and places his hands on his hips.

“ _You_ look ridiculous,” he retorts without missing a beat, his gaze shifting from his face to his hoodie, a mildly disgusted expression on his face. “Where’s your shirt and crown?”

“Spilled a drink on it.”

“You did…what? Do you know how much work it was to find us all matching shirts? I spent an entire day trying to find a tailor that would accommodate all our body shapes, _especially_ yours, Nick.”

He sighs, rolls his eyes a little. Why did he come back? Clearly, Schmidt doesn’t really need him here, and the more time that he spends at this stupid party, the less time he has to do what he really wants to do, which is to, uh, continue talking about hypothetical cats that hypothetically need burying.

“None of us asked you to do that, Schmidt!” He bites back, and okay, maybe he’s half-yelling now in frustration. Schmidt’s anniversary parties are always the worst, and this one is no exception. “And—I didn’t spill the drink, okay? A pretty girl in a pretty dress did. So…there. I’m here, okay? What else do you want from me?”

“A…pretty girl in a pretty dress,” Schmidt echoes, slowly raising one eyebrow and shooting him a weird look, and he instantly realises his slip up. He didn’t mean it like _that_ , just, well, the girl was very pretty and so was her dress. He’s a man, okay? A human man that is currently very much single; he’s allowed to notice things like that.

Schmidt’s eyes narrow further, his expression turning suspicious, and he immediately averts his gaze, shuffling slightly on the spot, the first beads of sweat forming on his lower back.

“Schmidt, uh, I didn’t—that wasn’t—”

“—I don’t actually care right now,” Schmidt says, cutting him off and holding up a hand to silence him, and Nick raises his eyes upwards to say a quick prayer to Chicago. He's not sure how he's managed to keep this whole fake girlfriend thing a secret for so long, but someone up North must be thinking about him. “Everyone’s been asking for bro juice and inventing it is probably the greatest thing that you’ll ever do in your life, so I need you to get up on that stage and start off a round of shots and liven up this party a little.”

  
“We’re way too old for this, you know,” he replies, but then shrugs his shoulders and decides to go along with it. His back is already uncomfortably damp and his t-shirt has started sticking to his skin, so he’ll happily take a thousand shots of bro juice – okay, maybe not a thousand: it’s good, but not _that_ good – if it's enough to distract Schmidt from interrogating him any further. “Alright. You win. Let’s go.”

He pauses when they get halfway to the other side of the hall, Schmidt’s exact words slowly registering in his head:

“Wait, you honestly think that bro juice is the greatest thing that I’m going to do in my life?”

Schmidt lets out an exasperated huff and reaches out to grab his arm, continuing to tug him forward, walking at such a speed that he has to half-jog in order to keep up and prevent his arm from being ripped out of its socket. (Or, at least, it feels like it, anyway.)

“Nick, you’re just a bartender and you’re close to broke: you’re not exactly going to change the world—”

“…I’m _just_ a bartender?”

Schmidt pauses, letting go of his arm, his face crumpling up into something that vaguely resembles regret, except it's Schmidt so the expression doesn't translate so well.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I meant that—”

“It’s fine, man. Whatever. It’s cool.” He replies, and then roughly tugs his arm out of Schmidt’s grip and walks past him, making sure to shove at his shoulder as he passes.

Yeah, maybe he’s _just_ a bartender and he’s not as rich as Schmidt (or, even, half as rich as Schmidt—or, okay, a quarter rich), but he’s still capable of doing things with his life, isn’t he? Like, something that’s bigger and better than inventing bro juice? (He’s not saying that bro juice wasn’t a great invention, but it’s still just…bro juice.) Plus, bartending makes him happy; happier than any other job he’s had, or, at least, happier than he was when he was at law school, so Schmidt can keep his stupid opinions to himself as far as he's concerned. He doesn’t need them. He’s doing _absolutely fine_. He’s made it this far by himself, hasn’t he?

He’s maybe two or three (or four?) shots of bro juice in, hiding out in the corner of the hall and coming up with creative insults for Schmidt under his breath, when he finds himself tugging his phone out of his pocket and texting Jess, overcome with a weird urge to _talk_ to someone. He’s not sure if it’s the warm buzz of alcohol that makes him do it or if it’s just that he wants to talk to Jess because she always seems to know the right things to say, but his fingers are typing words before he can stop himself:

_What made you decide to become an English teacher? – Nick_

_I’m not sure. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. – Jess xoxo_

_Why? – Jess xoxo_

_No reason. – Nick_

He leans back against the wall and slowly takes another sip of the beer he’s currently nursing, his eyes absentmindedly scanning the party in front of him. He doesn’t know why he’s letting Schmidt get in his head like this because he’s honestly perfectly content with his life (minus, you know, the fake girlfriend mess he's created), but the thought that bro juice, the stupid concoction that he’d invented on Schmidt’s 22nd birthday, might actually be his greatest lifetime achievement is kinda…terrifying. He’s not sure he wants that legacy for himself, but, at the same time, he really _is_ a bartender; he’s not about to save someone’s life, is he? He’s not like a doctor or anything.

_What’s going on? – Jess xoxo_

_What makes you think something’s going on? – Nick_

_Well, your last message to me was about burying cats in the desert, so.... – Jess xoxo_

_It’s nothing. – Nick_

_You’re a terrible liar. – Jess xoxo_

There’s a long pause then, and he momentarily wonders if he’s killed the conversation, the unsettling feeling in his gut magnifying ten-fold at the thought, but before he can drown his sorrows any further, his phone buzzes again:

_I don’t think you need to have all the answers. – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah? – Nick_

_Yeah. – Jess xoxo_

_All that matters is that you do something that makes you happy. – Jess xoxo_

_…unless that ‘something’ is killing cats, because I would like to have it on the record that I do not endorse that. – Jess xoxo_

He smiles slightly at that, the churning in his stomach slowing down enough to the point where he can look at Schmidt’s outline in the distance without wanting to punch him in the face. (Well, kinda. He always wants to punch Schmidt in the face a little bit. It’s not his fault; Schmidt’s _Schmidt_.)

_Worst job you’ve ever had? - Nick_

_Did a stint at the Casserole Shanty. I didn’t know that beans could have such a distinctive smell, but theirs did. Couldn’t get the smell off me no matter how hard I tried. I can still smell that bean smell every time I walk past one. – Jess xoxo_

_You? – Jess xoxo_

_Almost became a lawyer. – Nick_

_Wait, so you really did go to law school? – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah. Dropped out with three semesters to go and I’ve been a bartender ever since. – Nick_

_Why did you drop out? – Jess xoxo_

_(Also, I did not know that you were a bartender? How did I not know this? Does this mean that you know how to make fancy cocktails? Like, if I asked you to make me an Old Fashioned, you’d know how to?) – Jess xoxo_

_Didn’t like the person I was becoming, I guess. – Nick_

_(Yes.) – Nick_

_Does bartending make you happy? – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah. – Nick_

_Then I think you made the right choice. – Jess xoxo_

* * *

Cece doesn’t leave the party easily. She’d been planning on just picking Cece up and then returning to her quiet, uneventful night of Taylor Swift and knitting, but before she knows it, Cece’s been dragged up onto the stage by Bar Guy and is being made to drink shots of something called, um, _bro juice_? Cece tries to get her to come with her, but she fights off her attempts, reminding her (not so) gently that she drove here and she’s the one that’s going to need to get them home (and if there’s one thing that she’s not about to do today, or, ever, it’s commit a felony... which reminds her: she really needs to ask Cece how to get rid of that bag of meth she's got sitting in her closet before Aly accidentally finds it.) Instead, she resigns herself to sitting against the wall, squeezing herself between two fruit baskets and texting Nick to pass the time.

Nick’s been oddly despondent over the last five minutes, a stark contrast to the Nick of twenty minutes ago who was joking around about cat murder, sounding like he’s almost on the verge of having some sort of existential crisis. The problem is, she’s never really had to navigate these types of deep talks through _text_ before so she's at a bit of a loss about what to do. Her go-to move has always involved Feeling Sticks, but she can’t exactly hand him one through the phone, can she? (...Speaking of which, why isn't there a phone version? Like, a Feeling Stick app or something? Someone should really make one of those: she'd use the heck out of it.) What she does know though is that she doesn’t like seeing him – or, more accurately, reading him? – like this and she feels an overwhelming urge to _fix_ things and make him feel better.

She tries to get him to open up to her on a whim, even though she’s not really expecting it to work based on the fact that 90% of their conversations consist solely of back-and-forth bantering, but he seems to be in a more brooding mood tonight and he does. He lets it slip that he’s a bartender and it makes _so much sense_ given all the late-night and early-morning texts that she can’t believe the thought had never crossed her mind. It’s actually kind of weird when she thinks about it; she feels like she knows him so well and she can almost predict what he’s going to say to her at this point, but at the same time, there are all these big things about his life and all these different sides of him that she has absolutely no clue about and may _never_ know about. She bites her lip at the thought, swallowing thickly, suddenly uncomfortable. She likes their relationship the way it is, she does, but part of her can’t help but wonder if they’ll ever actually meet in real life or, crucially, if he’d even want to. He’s slowly but surely become such a significant part of her everyday life that she can’t quite remember what her life was like before.

“Nick, why are you hiding in the corner? Schmidt sent me over to tell you that he didn’t mean what he said and he’s really sorry and _please can you wingman him_.”

“Why can’t you wingman him?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“If Schmidt wants my help, he can come and apologise to me himself.”

She jumps at the sound of the all too familiar name, a weird feeling of déjà vu flowing through her body, tearing her eyes away from her phone and following the voices before she really knows what she’s doing. Her gaze lands on the guy from earlier, the one with the turtle-like frown who she’d clumsily split a drink on and who is apparently called _Nick_. He’s sitting diagonally from her, leaning against the wall with his phone clutched in his hands as he stares up at his friend, his position almost mirroring hers exactly. For a second, she lets herself imagine that this Nick is _her_ Nick, or—well, um, you know, the Nick in her phone, and she can’t help but smile at the thought, suddenly all caught up in a fantasy playing out in her head. It’d be like a scene from a cheesy rom-com movie where they’d meet eyes across the crowded room with the unmistakable sound of Taylor Swift playing in the background and they’d instantly realise that they’ve been talking to each other for months and fall in love—except, you know, Nick is a very common name, she has a kind-of-boyfriend and this Nick has an actual girlfriend. This Nick is also obviously not Phone Nick, because Phone Nick has never mentioned a significant other in all his texts and he also told her he’d escaped from a party an hour ago while this Nick is still at a party, so, um, what is she doing right now? …and, more importantly, why on Earth is she casting Phone Nick as her love interest in a made-up rom-com in her head?!

Maybe…Cece was right about the feelings thing? She _did_ watch Dirty Dancing on repeat when he’d vanished for those two weeks and she’s never done that before over someone who wasn’t a significant other. It’s just, he seems like a really nice, genuine guy and he makes her laugh more than anyone has in a long time and—

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, _oh no_.

Get it together, Jessica Christopher Day.

She shakes her head hard and then decides to pick the most unappealing topic she can think of in hopes that it’ll stop her brain from wandering into places it really shouldn’t:

_Ask me what Casserole Shanty beans smell like. – Jess xoxo_

There's a long pause, and she immediately sends a quick follow-up apology because this is probably not what he wants to talk about when they've just been in the middle of an unusually deep talk, but she eventually gets a reply half an hour later:

_Uh, okay. What do Casserole Shanty beans smell like? – Nick_

_Like beans, but beans in which a cat died. – Jess xoxo_

_How do you know what a dead cat smells like? – Nick_

_Wait, have you killed a cat before? – Nick_

_What? No! – Jess xoxo_

_I didn’t mean that literally. – Jess xoxo_

_How did you mean it? – Nick_

_New topic, please. – Jess xoxo_

_What, you don’t want to talk to me about cat murder anymore? – Nick_

_I'm offended, Jess. - Nick_

_No, I just feel like we've covered it pretty well. I don't think there's really anything left for us to discuss? - Jess xoxo_

_There’s always more, Jessica. – Nick_

_I have it on good authority that there’s an entire encyclopaedia on the topic. – Nick_

_That is definitely not true. – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, you got me. – Nick_

_Stop fact-checking me. - Nick_

_In your dreams. - Jess xoxo_

_I've never dreamt about that. - Nick_

_Um, I didn't mean that literally either. - Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, I know. - Nick_

_That was a joke. - Nick_

_Oh. Right. - Jess xoxo_

_Funny. - Jess xoxo_

_Not sure we can be friends anymore after that. - Nick_

_We're...friends? - Jess xoxo_

_Sure, as long as you haven't killed any cats. - Nick_

Her strategy kind of works, except not really, because she’s now giggling at his texts again, and—oh god. Jess, what is going on right now? What are you doing? Think about literally _anything_ else, like, um, Sam?! She jumps up from where she’s been sitting, shoves her phone firmly into her purse, and then walks over to Cece and pulls her away from Bar Guy, her breaths coming out a tad unsteadily.

  
“Cece, I think I have a problem,” she urgently whispers, except Cece’s more than a little tipsy now so she doesn’t quite hear her, shooting her a confused look. “I think I have a problem!”

A look of understanding crosses briefly over Cece's face, but then she just leans in until her face is close enough that she can smell the distinctive scent of alcohol on her breath.

“You're in love with your phone,” she says, her tone bordering on mocking and her words slightly slurred, though it's Cece so she knows that she doesn't actually mean it maliciously.

"I'm not—that's not what's happening here. It's not _love_ , it's just, god, I don't know," she manages to mumble out, except her cheeks are feeling kinda flushed because now she's thinking about her made-up rom-com scene again, and _oh no._

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Oh no.

* * *

It hits him at 4 AM in the morning that the Casserole Shanty is a chain based in California... as in, the very California that he’s currently living in. He stares at the ceiling above the couch, suddenly wide-awake, mulling the thought over in his head. He's not sure what that fact really means in the grand scheme of things, except that Jess likely lives in the same state as him which means that she's closer to him than he's ever let himself imagine.

Before he really knows what he's doing, he grabs a piece of wood he's been storing in the kitchen from one of his failed fancy DIYs, props it up on the dining room table and scribbles down the words _Casserole Shanty = California??_ on a post-it note and sticks it on. He's halfway through sneaking into his room - and past a sleeping Coach - and rummaging through his closet to find his trusty blue cap and sunglasses when he realises exactly what he's doing. This is...really, really creepy of him, right? He shouldn't be trying to go all Pepperwood on her? ...though, it's not like she'd ever find out and he _is_ really curious.

He slaps himself across both cheeks, rubs a hand over his face and forces himself to abandon the wood board and get some sleep. It's still there when he wakes up, the post-it staring him right in the face.

_How much do you know about robots? - Jess xoxo_

_Pretty sure a girl in my class has built a killer robot arm. - Jess xoxo_

_If you never hear from me again, please forward these texts to the police. - Jess xoxo_

He takes a deep breath, grabs a stack of post-its and scrolls all the way back up to the start.


	6. 666-666-666

_Wouldn’t be the worst way to die. – Nick_

_What? – Jess xoxo_

_Being killed by a robot arm. – Nick_

_I’ve thought about it a lot. – Nick_

_You’ve…thought about being killed by a robot arm a lot? – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah. – Nick_

_(…)_

_Is this like the bomb thing again, or…? – Jess xoxo_

_I still can’t believe you’ve never thought about how to make one. – Nick_

_Why would I?! – Jess xoxo_

_You’re a teacher, aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to encourage curiosity or something? – Nick_

_I mean, when you put it like that… – Jess xoxo_

_So, you admit it? - Nick_

_Admit…what? – Jess xoxo_

_That I win. – Nick_

_It wasn’t a competition? – Jess xoxo_

_Sure, it wasn’t. – Nick_

_Um, it really wasn’t. – Jess xoxo_

_Right. I believe ya. – Nick_

_I don’t understand what’s happening right now. – Jess xoxo_

* * *

Cece and Aly gang up on her and stage an intervention, of sorts. At least, they call it an ‘intervention’, but there’s a whole list of ‘essential supplies’ that’s slipped under her door the night before and she ends up spending a good $30 on wine (“it’s an intervention for _your_ benefit, why would we buy the drinks?” Aly replies flatly when she questions the list, not bothering to look up from her phone as she speaks …which, she guesses makes sense? But also, not? It’s not like she asked for this intervention.)

They’re about two glasses of pink wine in each (the list said white wine, but if she’s going to shell out $30 on a bottle, it’s going to be pink: sorry, not sorry) when Cece drags a chair into the middle of the living room and makes her sit in it and close her eyes.

“Do I have to?”

Aly raises an eyebrow at her and slowly crosses her arms, giving her the I’m-Aly-don’t-even-think-about-messing-with-me-Nelson trademark look, and—okay, okay, she’s sitting. She takes another sip of wine and then slowly puts a hand over her eyes, chewing on her bottom lip a little. All she wanted to do tonight was finish knitting that scarf for Cece and get her marking done in peace (and, okay, maybe continue the debate that she’s currently having with Nick about whether it’d be preferable to be killed by a robot arm or eaten by zombies), but that dream looks like it’s completely dead.

“Um, when do I open my eyes?”

She doesn’t get an answer straight away; instead, she hears the noises of fumbling in the background and hushed whispers, maybe even the sound of furniture being forcibly moved around. She dutifully keeps her eyes closed, if only because she knows from experience that Aly and Cece working together make one formidable, _stubborn_ force, but then, loud, cheery music starts playing, along with an undercurrent of rapid conversational Japanese, and she can’t help but open her eyes. The couch has been pushed back against the wall and there’s a neon podium right in front of her in its place, covered in flashing lights and glitter.

“What…what is this?”

Aly shrugs nonchalantly, as if there’s nothing unusual about the situation at all, stepping behind the podium and tapping it once.

“Had to clear out my storage unit a bit and I figured this was a good an opportunity as any to make use of some of this game show crap,” she replies.

She crosses her arms and eyes the podium suspiciously, leaning back in her seat slightly. She’s not sure exactly what Aly has in mind, but something in her gut tells her that she isn’t going to like it.

“Okay, one, it’s been years since you were in Japan so I still don’t understand why you’re keeping all of it,” she starts, holding a finger up at her, before putting a second one up in rapid succession, “and two, how is this supposed to help me?”

Aly and Cece ignore her comments, moving forward slightly so that they’re both directly in front of her.

“So…you agree that you have a problem?”

She pauses and tilts her head slightly, feeling her cheeks heat up involuntarily at the thought. Ever since she’d caught her imagination running into dangerous territories at the party she’d gate-crashed, she’s been trying not to think about Nick in any other context than a Very Good Friend (capitals and all) because that’s what they _are_ (V.G.F.s! V.G.F.s!), but it’s not been entirely successful. It’s stupid, really, because she doesn’t even know where he lives or what he looks like, but there are moments when he’ll type something utterly ridiculous that she can’t help but giggle with her head thrown back (to the extent that her neck will actually _ache_ the day after) or when he’ll leave her a _mornin’_ text at 4 AM because he knows she’ll read it two hours later when she wakes up, that make her heart feel all fuzzy and warm—

“Jess? Babe? We’re doing this because we love you,” Cece cuts in then, her eyes narrowed as she waits for an answer. “You’re clearly getting a little…too attached to your phone.”

She sighs softly, shifting on her chair a little, moving her gaze downwards.

“I know,” she admits slowly. “I told you that at the party.”

Cece blinks.

“You did? Honestly, I can’t remember much of what happened that night,” Cece says, frowning. “I don’t know what was in that drink Schm— _they_ called bro juice, but it really did things to my head.”

Aly raises an eyebrow, glancing over at Cece.

“Bro juice? What does the ‘bro’ stand for? Actually, forget I asked. I do not want to know,” Aly comments emphatically, before shooting her a sly grin. “Also, nice try. I bumped into _Schmidt_ in the elevator on my way over here.”

Jess blinks, her eyes widening slightly at this piece of information.

“Wait, what? Schmidt was here? As in, the guy from the bar? I thought you said you were just reading in your room and...oh. _Oh._ ”

Aly raises an eyebrow and shakes her head a little.

“Jess, when have you ever seen Cece read willingly?”

She tilts her head at that, because that’s a very good point and…oh _god_ , now that she thinks about it, Cece’s been ‘reading’ a whole lot recently, hasn’t she? How did she not put the two things together? She guesses she’s been spending more time holed up in her room on her phone than with Cece lately, but still.

“So, um, the whale noises that I heard from your room earlier were not…actually whale noises? Because—”

“—No, they were whale noises.”

“…What?”

“He has a CD. It’s a whole thing. _Anyway_ , this is about Jess, so we’re not talking about this right now. Or, you know, ever.”

She starts grinning then, watching the way that Cece’s shifting on the spot uncomfortably with interest. She can’t remember the last time she’s seen Cece like this around a guy; out of the two of them, Cece’s always been the effortlessly cool one and she’s always been…Jess.

“Do you like him?”

Cece narrows her eyes at her and slowly crosses her arms.

“Do you like _Nick?_ ”

It’s silent for a few seconds, all three of them attempting to stare each other down, but then Cece’s words from earlier register in her mind and she forgets exactly what she was trying to achieve in the first place.

“Wait…if you don’t remember what I told you at the party, then what prompted you guys to do this, um, intervention thing?”

Cece and Aly exchange amused glances, scoffing slightly:

“Jess, you text Nick all the damn time! The other day I asked if you wanted to go for a walk in the park and you said you were busy, but all you did was sit on the couch with your phone alone, and _you love parks_ —”

“—and I caught you watching Dirty Dancing a few weeks ago because he didn’t text you back for two weeks! Dirty Dancing, Jess! Dirty. Dancing.”

She swallows.

“I don’t like him like _that_ ,” she says slowly, pointedly ignoring the way both of their eyebrows shoot up in response. “I’m not, like, in love with him or anything. I mean, I’m with Sam, you guys know that, and Nick’s, um, he’s just a friend.”

Cece tilts her head slightly and gives her a calculating look, taking one purposeful step forward, her gaze turning intense.

“How are things going with Sam? I haven’t heard you talk about him much lately.

“Um, good,” she replies.

“Really?”

She hesitates for a second, unsure of how to answer the question. Things are _good_ between them, they are, but at the same time, she can’t help but shake the fact that there’s something missing—and that ‘something’ has nothing to do with her late-night conversations with Nick. Really. It doesn’t.

“ _Jess._ ”

“I just—I don’t know where I stand with him, I guess,” she says slowly, trying her best to formulate her thoughts properly.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Nick to him and he said that he also ‘has friends that are girls’, which, um, is fine, _obviously_ , but also… I don’t know what he meant by that. Am I reading too much into it? I know I have a tendency to do that, but—”

“—How did he say it?”

She squints a little and casts her mind back to that morning, and then does her best Doctor Sam impression, fist-bump and all. It’s silent for a minute afterwards, Aly and Cece exchanging meaningful looks with one another.

“What?”

Aly turns then, shrugs once.

“Oh, Jess,” she says, her voice laced with an emotion that she can’t quite pinpoint.

“Wait, so you think he did mean something by it? I mean, that’s what I originally thought, but Nick said that I shouldn’t read too much into it and that he probably just meant friends in the most platonic of senses—”

“—Uh, you took advice from _Nick_ before us?”

“I needed a guy’s perspective!”

“Oh, Jess,” Aly says again, with a shake of her head. “Okay, this is what you’re going to do.”

* * *

_Hey, this is going to sound weird, but you weren’t at a hospital today, were you? – Nick_

_Um, no? – Jess xoxo_

_…Why? – Jess xoxo_

_No reason. – Nick_

_Wait, why would you think I was at a hospital? – Jess xoxo_

_I just, uh, saw something today that reminded me of you. – Nick_

_What did you see? – Jess xoxo_

_Doesn’t matter. – Nick_

_(…)_

_What did she look like? The girl you thought was me? – Jess xoxo_

_Pretty... - Nick_

_...weird. – Nick_

_I’m being serious. – Jess xoxo_

_Nick? – Jess xoxo_

* * *

Winston’s the first one to find out about his secret, though at this point, he’s not exactly being subtle about it considering he’s got a board on the dining table with post-its stuck all over it. He’s honestly surprised that the other two haven’t asked him about it, but Schmidt’s been acting all _nice_ to him since the party and giving him wide-eyed apologetic pouts every time he walks into the room, while Coach keeps flipping between being overly amped up and locked up in _his_ room (not so quietly) moping over his breakup.

He’s not really sure what his end-goal is with this board or what he’s trying to figure out, but whatever it is, he doesn’t think he’s made that much progress. They’ve been talking for months, but yet, there are only a few facts that he knows about Jess: she – probably – lives in California because she used to work at the Casserole Shanty, she teaches kids and her school is near enough to a beach that she can take her kids there on a one day fieldtrip, she’s never killed a cat, and she doesn’t seem to enjoy fist-bumping after sex (or, rather, fist-bumping after ‘the deed’). He tries to do some basic probing on the internet in the early hours of the morning one day, but it turns out that just typing ‘California + Jess’ (or, for that matter, ‘California + Jessica’) brings up almost thirty million results. He momentarily wonders if he should press that shiny _advanced search_ button and get really serious, but he stops himself from doing it at the last second, slapping himself across both cheeks and chiding himself in his head. What…is he doing right now?

The problem is, now that he’s started, he can’t seem to stop, even though he knows that what he’s doing could quite seriously be considered _stalking_. She’d probably be horrified if she ever found out what he’s doing and he kinda feels like he might be losing it. He finds himself comparing every single girl he passes to the Jess checklist in his head, even when he knows the chances of any of them actually being Jess are impossibly small. It goes beyond just girls too; he catches a guy kissing and then _fist-bumping_ a girl outside of a hospital out of the corner of his eye one day and he freezes in the middle of the sidewalk, does a double-take, and almost drops the burrito he’s holding. (He texts Jess about it before he can stop himself, but _obviously_ it wasn’t her—and god, Miller, this is getting out of control. This might be the weirdest phase you’ve ever gone through, and that’s saying a lot, considering the post-Caroline days.)

He’s staring at the board that night, debating on whether he should trash the entire thing, when Winston sneaks up behind him and starts reading the post-its over his shoulder.

  
“What are you up to, man?”

“Nothing,” he replies, shifting his body so he’s hiding it from view as best as he can, but Winston’s too quick (damn him and his Latvian basketball skills) and he pulls the board out from behind him.

“Nick, why have you got a board called ‘Things I know about Jess’?” Winston asks slowly, his eyes still skimming the board as he speaks, and—yeah, he’ll admit it: putting a title on the board was definitely a huge mistake. “Why do you need post-its to remind you that your girlfriend lives in California? …or that her job is a teacher?”

He doesn’t reply, trying his best to wrangle the board back from Winston, but to no avail.

“Wait, you fist-bumped her after sex? I always knew you were bad at sex.”

He pulls a face, grimacing hard.

“I’m not _bad at sex_ ,” he retorts, forcing the words out through his teeth, his face contorting harder as Winston just chortles in response.

“Nick, do you remember what you said to me after you lost your virginity?

“Don’t bring that up right now—”

“—You said, ‘Winston, is it okay if I didn’t get my pants all the way off?’”

“I was _sixteen_ years old, okay? I’ve gotten a lot better.”

“Well, clearly not, if you’re fist-bumping afterwards—”

“—I didn’t fist-bump her! I don’t even _know her_ , okay?”

Winston blinks, letting go of the board in surprise, squinting at him.

“What? You…don’t know her? What does that mean?”

“Uh, nothing, forget I said that, I just—um, I have things to do, actually, so I’m just going to take this board and, uh, I’m just going to go to my room—”

“—Coach is in your room,” Winston interrupts, still staring at him with his eyes narrowed, slowly crossing his arms over his chest. “Nick, come on, I’m your oldest friend. What’s going on, man?”

“Nothing?” He tries, except he knows it doesn’t come out particularly convincing and he cracks almost immediately as Winston continues staring at him expectantly, partly because he’s so _stressed_ from keeping this in for so long and partly because he really has been losing it over the past few days and he has a lot of things that he wants to get off his chest.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he admits, all in one breath. “She’s just… you know when we went home for Christmas and I almost missed my flight again? Well, I was trying to text ya, but Schmidt deleted your number off my phone, so I ended up texting someone else by mistake.”

“Okay, and…?”

“Well, that someone, uh, was Jess.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Winston says slowly as the meaning of his words register in his mind, his eyes flashing. “Wait, so you’ve never met her? All this time you’ve been just…pretending that she’s your girlfriend? Why would you do that?”

He shrugs slowly, scratching the back of his head, slightly embarrassed by the entire situation.

“I don’t really know,” he answers truthfully. “I mean, at first it was just a convenient way to get out of doing things, but now… I don’t know.”

Winston purses his lips, leaning forward slightly, his eyes searching his face.

“Are you gonna tell Schmidt?”

He tilts his head, thinking about it for a second, but then he shakes his head. He knows he should probably tell Schmidt and clear the air so he can stop living this stupid make-believe, but at the same time, he kinda…doesn’t want to.

“Vault,” he replies instead, giving Winston a meaningful look.

“You want to…put this in the secret vault?”

“Yeah.”

“Nick, we’re already keeping five secrets from him. The secret vault is full.”

“I’m willing to declassify Halloween 2004 to free up a slot, or maybe, if we really had to, Upper Deck Timeshare—”

Winston eyes him suspiciously, slowly crossing his arms.

“—Is there something deeper going on here?”

“Like?”

“Like…maybe you pretended like she was your girlfriend because you want her to be your _actual_ girlfriend? I mean, declassifying Halloween 2004 would be a huge deal.”

“What? No! That’s not what this is about,” he says, shaking his head fast, backing away from Winston slightly, sweating hard. “There’s no deeper level, Winston. I just—I don’t want to tell him, okay? You know how Schmidt gets. I don’t want to deal with that right now.”

It’s silent for a few moments, Winston watching him curiously as he struggles to remember how to breathe properly.

“Nick, can I ask you something?” Winston asks suddenly, leaning against the edge of the table, looking infuriatingly calm. “Why exactly are you making this board? What’s the plan here?”

“I was just…curious, I guess,” he replies slowly, with a shrug, hoping that his cryptic answer will be enough for Winston to drop this entire thing and leave him alone.

Winston just shakes his head at him though, letting out a soft chuckle as if he’s suddenly figured everything out.

“You were trying to find her, weren’t you?” Winston asks, though he’s pretty sure that the question is rhetorical and they both know that yeah, he kinda was. “Why didn’t you just…ask her if she wanted to meet up?”

He shrugs again, shifting his gaze down to the floor.

"I don't know. I guess I just don't want to scare her off or screw everything up. She's...a friend. I care about her."

Winston lets out another knowing chuckle and then straightens up, reaching out and grabbing his arm, tugging him into the direction of Schmidt’s bedroom and pounding on the door, trying to get his attention over the weird noises coming from his sound machine:

“Schmidt, we have to tell you about something that happened on Halloween in 2004.”

He glances at Winston in surprise, but Winston just claps him on the shoulder, whispers ' _secrets exchanged_ ' in his ear and bows at him with his hands clasped together.

* * *

_I saw someone that reminded me of you at a party the other day. - Jess xoxo_

_You did? - Nick_

_Yeah. I mean, I know he wasn't you, but his name was also Nick and he was all grumpy, but in a good way, and, I don't know, there was just something about him. - Jess xoxo_

_Do you want to be more specific about that, or..? - Nick_

_He was pretty... - Jess xoxo_

_...weird. - Jess xoxo_

_B minus. - Nick_

_B minus? - Jess xoxo_

_Yeah, that was a B minus joke. It was like a B plus joke when I did it, but I had to dock marks from you for the lack of originality. - Nick_

_I know you laughed anyway. - Jess xoxo_

_Nope._ _\- Nick_

_You did. I know you did. - Jess xoxo_

_It's okay, Jess. Not everyone can be as funny as me all of the time. - Nick_

_You are not funny 'all of the time'. - Jess xoxo_

_...half of the time? - Nick_

_Okay, I'll give you half. - Jess xoxo_

_Right back at ya. - Nick_

_(...)_

_That might be the first B minus I've ever gotten in my life. - Jess xoxo_

_Seriously? Who are you?! - Nick_

_Is it weird that I'm genuinely kind of bothered by it? - Jess xoxo_

_Yes. - Nick_

_  
Would it help at all if I bumped it up to a B? - Nick_

_No! What kind of example would I be setting to my students if I managed to talk you into giving me a better grade? Mark schemes exist for a reason! - Jess xoxo_

_I mean, one, it's not a real grade and there's no mark scheme, and two, you didn't exactly talk me into anything. - Nick_

_...I'll take the B minus. - Jess xoxo_

_Okay. Good talk. - Nick_

_(...)_

_A B minus isn't that bad, right? I mean, it's still a pass and it leaves room for improvement... - Jess xoxo_

_Jessica, let it go. - Nick_

_Don't you have real school tomorrow? It's late, you should get some sleep. - Nick_

_Okay. You're right. - Jess xoxo_

_Night. - Jess xoxo_

_Night, you B minus student. - Nick_

_Hey, not cool! - Jess xoxo_


	7. 777-777-777

It turns out that while Winston’s agreed to keep his secret tucked away in their imaginary shared vault, he’s not prepared to completely throw away the keys. If anything, it’s like he’s crawled into the vault _with_ the secret and he’s stirring it around with a wooden spoon like he’s making a huge vat of soup or sauce, and—uh, let’s put aside that analogy for a minute. Getting a bit off-track there, Miller.

It starts with his post-it-covered wooden board magically disappearing from its secret hiding place in his temporary bedroom (also known as: underneath the couch in the spot where they’ve never been able to vacuum). He’s confused for ten seconds _at most_ when he reaches underneath the couch with a stick and finds a single marble there instead, but then Winston appears, looking down at him like he’s pulled off the greatest deception of the century, rubbing his hands together and cackling widely. He lets out an exasperated sigh at the familiar sight, wordlessly storms past him down the hallway, and: surprise, surprise _,_ there his board is, sitting happily in the middle of Winston’s bedroom.

“Uh, thanks, man,” he says, choosing his words carefully as he leans against Winston’s doorframe.

“For…what?”

“I mean, it’s way easier to hide this in your room than out there in the living room, so—”

“—That wasn’t what I was trying to do,” Winston interrupts, a look of confusion passing over his face.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, handing back the marble and then reaching out to pat him on the shoulder sympathetically. “This was _way too small_ , buddy.”

“You think? I really thought I was onto something here,” Winston says, dismayed.

“Definitely way too small,” he confirms, and then, frowns, glancing over at Winston properly. “…Wait, why are ya trying to prank me anyway? What did I do?”

Winston narrows his eyes, slowly crossing his arms across his chest.

“You don’t remember?”

“Do I look like I remember?”

Winston shakes his head at him, before kneeling onto the floor of his room and calling out for Furguson, who comes running at the sound, winding his way through his legs.

“Does this jog any memories, Nick?

He frowns, trying to think back. He doesn’t think he’s done anything to Winston’s cat, but the others had decided to go down to a party the other night and he’d bailed, partly because he was in the middle of a debate with Jess about the correct use of _metaphors_ and partly because he couldn’t be bothered to move from his spot on the couch. He'd absentmindedly agreed to watch the cat, if only so they'd leave the loft faster, and—

“—Oh.”

“—The butt pill _,_ Nick!” Winston exclaims at the exact same time as it hits him, shooting him an almost comical look of outrage, his eyes wide. “You forgot to give him his butt pill!”

He pulls a face, grimacing at the thought.

“Okay, _maybe_ I promised I’d do that, but in my defence, I wasn’t completely listening when I said yes,” he says quickly. “But it’s fine! He’s alive, isn’t he?”

“I know you weren’t listening,” Winston replies, eyeing him reproachfully as he gathers Furguson in his arms and strokes him with one hand. “All you do these days is talk to your fake girlfriend.”

“That is _not_ true,” he retorts immediately in a hushed whisper, glancing around to check that the hallway is free of Schmidt and Coach. He guesses that the other night was far from the first time he’s bailed on his roommates in favour of continuing his conversations with Jess in peace though...

“You know I’m right.”

He sighs non-committedly, rubbing a hand over his face, not wanting to spend any more time psychoanalysing his own behaviour than he needs to. 

“Look, man, I’m sorry, okay? I swear I’ll remember the butt pill next time.”

“You really think there’s going to be a next time? I’m not trusting you with his butt pills ever again, Nick!”

“Okay!”

* * *

_Have you ever had to give a butt pill to a cat? – Nick_

_A…butt pill? – Jess xoxo_

_Yeah. – Nick_

_How does that work? – Jess xoxo_

_Uh, I mean, I think you just…stick it up there. – Nick_

_Why can’t it be a mouth pill? Why does its butt have to be involved? – Jess xoxo_

_Also… why exactly are you asking me this? – Jess xoxo_

_The answer is no, though. – Jess xoxo_

_No reason. Just another normal day of living with my roommates. – Nick_

_(…)_

_Do you have any pets? – Nick_

_Nope. I’ve always wanted a dog though. – Jess xoxo_

_Why don’t you get one? – Nick_

_I almost did, but, um, funny story: the dog adoption agency wouldn’t let me adopt because they said that my enthusiasm for dogs bordered on…madness. – Jess xoxo_

_…madness? – Nick_

_You’d understand if you’d seen her. She was the most adorable thing that I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I picked her up and I immediately knew that I was never going to put her down again. – Jess xoxo_

_Right. – Nick_

_I’m being serious! – Jess xoxo_

_I know you are. – Nick_

_How did they get the dog off you? - Nick_

_No comment. - Jess xoxo_

Post-it #33: _she doesn’t have pets, but she likes dogs. (scratch that: *loves* dogs)_

* * *

Cece and Aly formulate a detailed plan of action for her to follow regarding Sam, which she follows meticulously. Well, kind of. Step 1 of their plan is to figure out whether she’s in love with Nick, but she crosses that out until it’s covered up with enough ink that she can’t read it anymore. It’s a moot point, because even if, yeah, sometimes she’ll read his texts and think about all the _what ifs_ , her mind unfairly comparing him to Sam, she can’t do anything about it. They don’t know each other in real life, and in all these months of texting, they’ve never even called each other and part of her thinks that he probably wouldn’t want to cross that line. Heck, she’s not sure that _she’d_ want to cross that line, despite all these confusing feelings that have been brewing in her head; there’s something kinda nice about being able to confide in him about everything without any real-life repercussions.

Step 2 through to 10 are all about Sam: she invites him over for dinner and they talk. And talk, and talk, and talk (and there may or may not have been a Feelings Stick involved). She finds out almost immediately that Nick’s advice was very much off-base and Sam really has had non-platonic girl friends all along (or, as he calls them, ‘just weekend things’). Under normal circumstances, it’d probably be enough for her to end things, but for some reason, she doesn’t. She’s not sure if it’s because of Sam deciding that he actually _does_ want to be exclusive because he thinks that they work really great together, or because she wants to prove to herself – and Cece and Aly – that she hasn’t managed to fall in love with a stranger through words on a screen, or because she awkwardly brings up the fist-bumping thing and Sam promises not to do it again, or some complicated mixture of the three.

When Sam eventually leaves the next morning, staying true to his word and _not_ fist-bumping her when he wakes up, but instead, pressing a kiss against her forehead and then telling her that she looks so beautiful in the mornings that he can’t even look at her, she tries to fill Cece in on what had happened. It turns out that Cece also wasn’t alone last night though, because she opens the door the tiniest bit when she knocks and then slides out, firmly shutting the door again behind her.

“Schmidt again?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cece says quickly, then adds, “it’s _just_ sex.”

“Right. Just sex,” she echoes, but she’s pretty sure that they both know that isn’t entirely true. If it was _just_ sex, there’d be no reason for Cece to be hiding him from her: she’s pretty sure that he’s been sneaking into their apartment every night this week and then sneaking out before she’s awake and can offer to cook them all breakfast and get to know him.

“Jess, did you want to tell me something? If not, I was kinda in the middle of something, like, really, right in the middle of something, so…”

“Okay, ew, I don't want to know," she says, pulling a face, and then blurting out what she wanted to tell Cece, blushing slightly as she remembers how sweet he’d been this morning. This could work, right? Her and Sam? He really does seem to care about her, and non-platonic girl friends aside, she's always had a great time hanging out with him.

"I’m dating Sam, like, for real this time."

Cece blinks in response, a look of surprise crossing over her face.

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

“…and this is really what you want?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” She asks, frowning slightly.

“Uh, because you clearly have a thing for Nick,” she says slowly, as if she needs to spell it out to her.

“It’s not a _thing_ ,” she replies quickly, feeling her blush grow deeper, “and—that doesn’t matter. It’s not like we’re ever going to meet, so I think I just need to…stop checking my phone so much.”

“Right,” Cece says, in almost exactly the same tone as she’d uttered that word about Schmidt. “Look, if this is really what you want, then I’m happy for you, okay?"

She tries to convince herself that it is.

* * *

Nick attempts to be a better roommate, he really does. He spends the next few days being as attentive as he can possibly be, laughing at all their jokes (even _Schmidt’s_ ), letting Winston’s cat perch on his lap during movie night, and even, visiting the gym with Coach (sure, maybe Coach doesn’t manage to get him to go anywhere near the treadmill (he doesn’t trust them; who’s to say that it’s not going to suddenly speed up a hundred-fold and throw him off?) and he spends an hour just sitting on the ground and watching Coach run, but it’s the sentiment that counts, right?)

The only problem is, Winston makes it near impossible to keep this act going on for very long because several days later, he unknowingly walks into another one of his pranks, except this time, it’s on the other end of the spectrum and it hits too close to home for comfort. He doesn’t quite realise what’s happening until it’s too late: Winston shows up in the middle of his shift with none of their roommates in tow, silently seats himself at the bar and spends the next hour taking slow sips of his drink, his eyes fixed on the door. He ignores Winston easily for an hour, focusing on his work as best as he can, but then the bar suddenly gets unusually busy and there are a million women congregating at his end of the bar, all trying to grab his attention.

“Hey, there. You in the flannel,” the closest one says, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger as she leans over the bar, uncomfortably close to invading his personal space. “My name’s Jess.”

He freezes, almost dropping the glass he was wiping in surprise, his mouth falling open as he glances up.

“What? What did you just say?”

“My name’s Jess.”

He blinks once, then twice, his mind struggling to formulate an appropriate response, but then, a second girl starts speaking, and then a third, and then a fourth, and—damn it, it turns out that every single one of these girls is allegedly called Jess. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, forces himself to take deep breaths, and then stalks over to the other side of the bar where Winston’s now doubled over in silent laughter, tears threatening to stream down his cheeks.

“You should have seen your face,” Winston says, chortling gleefully.

“Not funny,” he states, frowning deeply, both annoyed at Winston’s antics but also at how foolishly stunned he’d been when the first girl had said that her name was Jess. Did he honestly think, even for a split-second, that Jess, _his_ Jess, was really going to just walk into the bar where he works and introduce herself out of nowhere? That’s the stuff of fairy tales, Miller, not real life. In real life, everything kinda sucks and people are the worst. Case in point: Winston.

“How much did you pay them to do that?”

“I didn’t,” Winston replies, with a nonchalant shrug, then hands him a HELP WANTED! poster with his face on it. He squints at it for a few seconds in disbelief, but nope, this is real; this is an actual thing that exists. “I just hung these up around town and people showed up.”

“Winston, it says right here that there’s a reward of $10,000 if they find me and tell me their name is Jess: _obviously,_ people showed up, you idiot,” he grumbles, gritting his teeth slightly, slowly crumpling the poster in his fists as he speaks. “What happens if they try to claim the money?!”

Winston just leans back in his seat, completely unfazed by his reaction.

“Don’t worry, it’s a fake phone number,” he tells him, reaching out and patting him on the arm. “I bought a burner phone and made a website and everything. Do you want to see it? I’m pretty proud of it if I’m honest, but no-one’s even visited it yet.”

“You did…what?” He sighs in exasperation, rubbing a hand across his jaw. “Is this because of the damn butt pill? I already apologised for that! What more do you want from me? If I could go back in time and shove that pill up that thing’s butt, I would!”

Winston shakes his head. “Okay, firstly, Furguson is not a _thing,_ and secondly, I’m over that,” he says, a serious expression crossing his face as he continues staring at him. “This is just because I think you’re being a coward.”

“About what?!”

“ _Jess_ , obviously.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nick, you barged into my room and woke me up at 3 AM yesterday to stick more post-it’s onto your stalker board. 3 AM!”

“It’s not a _stalker_ board,” he retorts, slowly crossing his arms.

“Are you sure? Because it really seems like one. I mean, you’ve even got a map of California stuck up there now. What’s next? Are you going to trace her phone?”

He pauses, mulling that idea in his head. He thinks he might have seen a YouTube tutorial on phone tapping before, but if not, they must sell kits for that sort of thing on the dark web, right? He just needs to, uh, figure out how one actually gets onto the dark web in the first place, but then—

“—Nick, that was not a serious suggestion! Look, all I’m saying is, if you really want to find her this badly, all you have to do is _send a text_ and ask, you idiot.”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“You know why! You know I don't do things unless I know what's going to happen!"

“So...what? You’re just going to figure out where she lives through her texts and then do nothing about it?” 

"Kinda, yeah. That was the plan.”

* * *

Jess tries to dial back her phone time considerably over the next couple of days, forcing herself to focus on her new (but, also, not new?) relationship with Sam. If Nick notices, he doesn’t mention it, continuing to respond to any text that she sends in the same conversational manner. He’s been oddly curious lately, asking her more personal questions about her life, but maybe that’s just because by this point, they’ve exhausted all the small talk and they've told each other the most obvious stories about their respective lives already. She doesn’t mind; if anything, she quite likes it because it means she gets a better insight into his mind at the same time. She learns that he's afraid of sharks, tap water and blueberries, and that he believes that horses come from outer space ( _wait, really? I've always thought that too! - Jess xoxo)._ In return, she tells him that she's afraid of pears and pear-shaped people ( _pears? really?_ \- Nick), and that she's weirdly good at volleyball.

She’s in the middle of baking a batch of cupcakes for her class’ assembly tomorrow, her phone stashed away and charging in her room, when there’s a knock on the door. It’s just one knock at first, but then as she scrambles to open the oven, grab the hot tray out and set it on the counter and whip off her oven gloves, there’s several more in quick succession. She lets out a noise of frustration ( _patience!_ ), runs towards the door and opens it to reveal Schmidt’s roommate awkwardly standing on the other side. It’s the one who she’d crashed into at the flower party; in other words, the one with the turtle-like frown who she’d discovered was also called Nick, and…the one who she’s pretty sure she’d seen on a poster the other day offering people $10,000 if they told him their name was Jess.

“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat slightly, and she suddenly realises she’s been silently staring at him for a minute straight.

“Um, hi,” she replies, her cheeks flushing, before overcompensating in her awkwardness and speaking fast, words spilling out of her mouth. “Hey, did you know there's a poster with your face on it two blocks down? Because I was on my way to the drugstore the other day and I walked by it, did a double-take, and—”

“Yeah, I already know,” he cuts in with a grimace, his brow furrowing. “Don’t ask. Roommate did it as a prank.”

“Okay, I won’t,” she replies, taking a second to catch a breath before continuing, “just, my name actually _is_ Jess, so I thought it was kinda funny that it was offering $10,000 for people to tell you that—”

“Wait, your name’s…Jess? Or, are you just saying that because of the $10,000? 'Cause I hate to break it to ya, but I don't have that sort of money."

“Um, my name really is Jess,” she says, squinting at him, frowning slightly as the colour starts to drain from his face, his eyes glazing over ever so slightly. “Do I not look like a Jess or something? You’re staring at me weirdly.”

He rubs a hand across his face, slaps himself on the cheek, and then shakes his head hard.

“Uh, no, you look like a Jess,” he tells her, slowly meeting her eyes. “Cool. Cool. Very cool. It’s a common name.”

“Right,” she says, quirking an eyebrow at him in bemusement, not entirely sure if she's just missed some subtlety in their conversation. "Did you want something?"

“Yeah, I, uh, I just came here to bring Schmidt some supplies,” he says, brandishing the box he’d been holding in her direction.

“Supplies?”

He grimaces again, his nose scrunching up as he does so.

“Again, don’t ask. Trust me, you’re better off not knowing,” he says, running a hand haphazardly through his hair, and then raises his voice considerably as he calls out for Schmidt. “Schmidty, you in there?”

Schmidt walks out then, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, sauntering out to stand besides her as if this _isn’t_ one of the first encounters they’ve ever had.

“Nick, Jess. Jess, Nick,” Schmidt says, introducing them to each other, even though she kind of thinks she’s actually spoken to Nick more times at this point, and that’s saying something because they’ve only ever had two conversations. “Huh, actually, Nick’s girlfriend’s also called Jess. He's disgustingly in love with her."

She blinks at this piece of information, turning to meet Nick's eyes.

“She's also called Jess?”

“Yeah, uh, yeah, _that_ ,” he says, looking oddly uncomfortable again, but maybe that’s just because they don’t know each other, and he doesn’t like sharing personal details with complete strangers. Kinda sweet, really.

She shoots him a soft smile, her chest growing warm as she watches how shy he's suddenly become at the mention of his girlfriend, shuffling back and forth on the spot, staring down at the ground.

“Like you said, Jess is a common name, right?”

“Yeah, right,” he agrees slowly after a beat, though he doesn’t seem entirely convinced for some reason. He should be though; she’s googled her own name before and it was the 331st most used name in the US last year! She opens her mouth to inform him of that fact, but before she can, he shoves the box into Schmidt’s waiting hands, sticks up a hand in farewell, and then walks off. She watches him go for a second before she closes the door, her lips quirked slightly as she notices that he'd been uncomfortable enough about the topic to have sweated through the back of his shirt, her mind wondering what it's like to love someone enough to have that sort of reaction before she can stop herself.

* * *

_Winston, I met a Jess. – Nick_

_Like…just a girl called Jess? – W_

_Yeah. – Nick_

_Do you know how many Jess’ there are in the world? – W_

_You better not text me every time you meet someone called Jess, or I swear I’m going to set Furguson on you when you sleep. – W_

_You’re going to set Furguson on me? What does that even mean?! – Nick_

_Also, I know the chances of her actually being Jess are almost impossible, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean, she could be, right? – Nick_

_What do I do? I feel like I’m losing it. – Nick_

_You’re an idiot. – W_

_How is that supposed to help? – Nick_

_It’s not. – W_

_I already told you what to do: just text the girl and ask her to meet you! It’s simple, Nick. - W_

He doesn't text her; instead, he sticks his trusty cap and sunglasses back on as soon as he gets home, and he redoubles his efforts to channel the spirit of Julius Pepperwood. As his fellow detective friend Sherlock Holmes would say: the game is afoot—or, wait, it should be 'on foot', surely? What does 'afoot' mean? The game is a...foot? Games can't be feet. That makes zero sense...and that's precisely why Pepperwood is by far the superior detective. It's not even a close contest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and the plot thickens!
> 
> thanks so much for reading and leaving comments etc! it's crazy to me that this is past 100 kudos now :')
> 
> let me know your thoughts! good/bad/whatever you want :)


End file.
